
Gop)Tight!^" 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 
FOR TEACHERS 



BY 
GARLAND ARMOR BRICKER, B. Ped., M.A. 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

COLLEGES OF EDUCATION AND AGRICULTURE, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 

AUTHOR OF " THE TEACHING OF AGRICULTURE IN THE HIGH SCHOOL '' 

AND " SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM " 

MANAGING EDITOR OF "THE RURAL EDUCATOR" 




AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO 






Copyright, 1914, by 
GARLAND ARMOR BRICKER. 
Copyright, 1914, in Great Britain. 

bricker's agric. educ. 
w. p. I 



NOV 19 1914 
©CI.A387599 



3; 



TO MY WIFE 

MABEL McClelland bricker 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER ^^^^ 

I. The Rise of Popular Education in Agriculture 7 

II. The Problem of Intensive Agriculture 10 

III. A Popular Scientific Agriculture 17 

IV. The Qualifications of the Teacher of Agriculture 27 
V. The Preparation of Teachers to Teach Agriculture 32 

VI. Agencies for the Preparation of Teachers 36 

VII. Elementary Agriculture and Nature Study 62 

VIII. What is Elementary Agriculture? 75 

IX. Agriculture as a Means of Education 80 

X. Pedagogical Problems Involved in the Teaching of 

Elementary Agriculture 93 

XL The Administration and Teaching of School Agri- 
culture i°6 

XII. The Cooperative Use of Apparatus, Equipment, 

AND Illustrative Material 1 24 

XIII. The Agricultural Demonstration Field and Home 

Projects ^3° 

XIV. Boys' and Girls' Agricultural Clubs 154 



PREFACE 

The March winds have passed in agricultural edu- 
cation. The sudden sallies of transient flurries with 
their bluster are now rapidly giving way to the quieter 
days of summer. A more sober purpose is vitalizing 
and systematizing the work of agricultural teaching, 
and with each passing year less emphasis is being 
placed on exploitive methods. 

Prejudice, inertia, and misgivings are everywhere 
gradually yielding place to the new rural education. 
Country communities are demanding that their schools 
educate in terms of rural life; normal schools are 
rapidly instituting and perfecting departments for 
the training of rural teachers; and the colleges are 
offering courses in rural leadership, and in the teach- 
ing of agriculture, home economics, and farm manual 
training. Tens of thousands of teachers have sud- 
denly become conscious of the new demands that are 
being made on them. Not all may take advantage 
of the facilities offered by the higher institutions of 
learning, while many who take brief courses in sum- 
mer sessions feel the need of keeping in constant 
touch with the new ideas in agricultural education 
along its fundamental lines of development. 

Teachers in active service, as well as prospective 

S 



6 PREFACE 

teachers in training, it is hoped, will profit by the 
reading and study of this book, in which are recorded 
the knowledge and wisdom gleaned from a decade of 
experience, observation, and study. The book is not 
the final word on agricultural education, but may be 
considered a handbook for the teacher, and a guide- 
book for the district and the county superintendent 
and the supervisor of rural or agricultural education. 
The thanks of the author are due Dr. A. C. True, 
Director of the U. S. Office of Experiment Stations; to 
H. C. Lane, Specialist in Agricultural Education of the 
same office; and to Dean W. W. Boyd, of the College 
of Education at the Ohio State University, for helpful 
criticisms and suggestions on section 6 of Chapter VI; 
also, to Dr. B. M. Davis, Professor of Agricultural 
Education at Miami University; and to Prof. A. W. 
Nolan, Assistant Professor of Agricultural Extension, 
at the University of Illinois, for the review and com- 
ments on Chapter VII. 

G. A. B. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR 
TEACHERS 

CHAPTER I 

THE RISE OF POPULAR EDUCATION 
IN AGRICULTURE 

Agriculture is the most recent of the sciences; and 
through the apphcation of its principles to the pro- 
duction of food, clothing, and shelter, or to the satis- 
fying of man's aesthetic desires, the most ancient art 
of agriculture has had a new birth. From this grand 
old industry, over forty milhons of our people daily 
draw their wealth and inspiration for higher and better 
living. Without this basic source of wealth, our people 
could not continue to support our highly developed 
Christian civilization through another year. To insure 
the perpetuity of an intelligent agriculture for the gen- 
erations of our people who shall inherit and till the God- 
given acres of the nation after we have quit them, it 
becomes an inevitable duty of the state to educate 
her youth in this wonderful science and noble art. 

Agriculture, as a school subject, has been long in 
coming; but some notion as to how long it will stay 
with us may be gained when we reflect how long man- 
kind will continue to draw its sustenance from the 

7 



8 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

soil. When one considers that there will be need for a 
greater quantity of agricultural products as the popula- 
tion of the earth increases, and that, with the advance 
of time, agricultural products may be produced with 
ever increasing difficulty, the future importance of 
this subject may be more clearly understood. Agri- 
culture "has come to stay," and — it may be said 
more truthfully now than ever — into the hands of the 
teachers of the state has been thrust its destiny. 

The demand for popular education in agriculture 
came suddenly. Its rise and triumph have been ac- 
complished almost in one decade. After half a century 
of propagandism in favor of popular education in this 
subject by the land-grant colleges, the United States 
Department of Agriculture, the agricultural experiment 
stations, and other agricultural organizations, the pub- 
He mind has been placed in a receptive attitude. 
When small beginnings in public school agriculture were 
made in various localities over the country, the people 
took kindly to the new undertaking, or, at least, did 
not actively oppose it. In some communities a genuine 
enthusiasm was engendered by its introduction into 
the school courses. From these small beginnings, the 
enthusiasm for the study and teaching of elementary 
agriculture began to spread, gaining rapidly in force 
as time went on. From 1900 to 1905, the tide rose 
very rapidly, and during the following half-dozen years 
a veritable flood of public sentiment for the teaching of 
this branch in the schools swept the country. 



RISE OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 9 

The sudden impetus given to popular education in 
agriculture has found thousands of teachers unpre- 
pared to teach the subject. Apparently without warn- 
ing, laws have been passed requiring the teaching of 
agriculture in both the elementary and the high schools, 
and, in several instances, teachers have been required 
to take examinations in this branch with almost no 
opportunity to prepare themselves for the ordeal. 

Although teachers are unprepared and schools un- 
equipped to teach the elements of agriculture, the 
gigantic task must be attempted and somehow accom- 
plished. A few leaders have blazed the way, popular 
clamor has rapidly followed, and the American school 
teacher dares not turn backward. Our teachers have 
never yet failed the nation, and never will. Tens of 
thousands are wearing out their lives at the post of 
duty, and, as Little Peterkin held back the threatening 
waters of a roaring sea, so they are holding back the 
black sea of ignorance from engulfing a people. The 
American schoolman does not perform things by halves. 
This new agricultural education is to him an oppor- 
tunity to render greater service. 

Review of Chapter I 

What can you say concerning — 

1. The importance of agriculture as a school subject? 

2. The rise of popular education in agriculture? 

3. The unpreparedness of teachers to teach agriculture? 

4. The spirit with which teachers are preparing them- 
selves to teach agriculture? 



CHAPTER II 
THE PROBLEM OF INTENSIVE AGRICULTURE ' 

One reason why agriculture should be taught in the 
public schools is that, as a nation, we must begin to 
work out the solution of the problem of intensive agri- 
culture. The rich virgin soil that our fathers, grand- 
fathers, and great-grandfathers first cultivated in Amer- 
ica is being rapidly impoverished. The fertility of our 
soil is being exploited just as are our other natural 
resources of the forests, the mines, and the rivers. 
By wasteful and unscientific methods of farming, 
we are preparing to transmit an impoverished soil 
to the future inhabitants of this country. Even now, 
there are many abandoned tracts of land that may be 
purchased at ridiculously low prices. Already there 
are agrarian conditions, caused by an exhausted soil, 
that should not exist within the boundaries of our 
country. In the past we have been exploiting our soil; 
from henceforth we must endeavor to conserve its 
fertility to the end that the conditions of life may be 
ameliorated for the multitudes of our race that shall 
inhabit this land after us. 

We have much to learn from other nations in matters 

' Sec Educational Revieiv, Vol. 41, pp. 359-403, April, igii, where 
a portion of this and the following chapter were first published. 

10 



INTENSIVE AGRICULTURE II 

agricultural. The Germans, from fields that have been 
tilled for the past thousand years, are able to produce 
an average yield of twenty-eight bushels of wheat per 
acre; while we Americans, from a new soil that has 
been farmed only one tenth as long — about a century — 
are producing an average yield of only fourteen bushels 
of wheat per acre. The Chinese can do still better 
than the Germans. In that ancient and crowded coun- 
try of China, the inhabitants have been driven to 
find a solution for the problem of intensive agriculture; 
and even there, owing to a limited scientific knowledge, 
there has been no complete and satisfactory solution 
of this problem. A case has recently been reported ^ 
of a Chinaman, who, from two and one half acres — 
which, in China, is considered a good estate — supports 
himself, his wife, ten children, one donkey, one cow, 
and two pigs. Can any Anglo-Saxon living accomplish 
such a feat? Consider what an American farmer might 
do with a forty-acre farm, if he understood the science 
and art of agriculture as does the Chinaman. He might 
feed, clothe, and shelter thirty- two adults, one hundred 
and sixty children, sixteen donkeys, sixteen cows, and 
thirty- two pigs, — and then have enough left to spend 
on improvements and pay the necessary taxes. In 
this comparison the advantage would be on the side 
of the American, because he would have a better soil 
and the use of labor-saving machinery. 

1 King, F. H.: Farmers of Forty Centuries, p. 3. Mrs. F. H. King, 
Madison, Wis., 1911. 



12 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

The American people of the future must either learn 
the lesson of intensive agriculture, or starve, or fight. 
These three are the only alternatives. During the past 
history of this nation our population has, on an average, 
doubled each twenty-five years. The returns of the 
latest census show a population of about 91,000,000, 
for the contiguous North American territory. If our 
people continue thus to increase during the next cen- 
tury, the United States will have the enormous popula- 
tion of 1,456,000,000 persons within her borders in 
A. D. 2010 — and all this multitude must be fed, clothed, 
and sheltered by the products from the same area that 
we now possess, large portions of which are of doubtful 
value, and other portions depleted of fertility.^ By 
our present methods of agriculture, it will be impossible 
to supply the necessaries of life. The average density 
of population will be 480 persons to the square mile, 
or nearly equal to the most densely populated coun- 
try of Europe, — and Belgium does not raise nearly 
enough from her area to feed, clothe, and shelter her 
people, but the raw materials for doing this must 
be supplied by commerce from less densely populated 
countries. There are no more new lands to be dis- 
covered and subdued to which our children's children 
may migrate as did our grandfathers. The people of 
that future day will, therefore, be compelled to prac- 

1 In this connection see what Dean Eugene Davenport has to say 
on the same thought in his Education for Efficiency, pp. 152 et seq. 
D. C. Heath & Co., Boston, 1910. 



INTENSIVE AGRICULTURE 13 

tice successfully an intensive agriculture, or starve, 
or wage a war of extermination upon other races of 
mankind in order to secure additional areas from which 
to subsist. 

It may be argued that our people will not increase 
so rapidly in the future as they have in the past. We 
have, however, no assurance of that fact. The increase 
in the population of the United States is due to two 
causes: the immigration of foreign peoples and the 
natural reproduction of our own native races. It is 
doubtless true that, as time advances and this country 
becomes more densely populated, there will constantly 
be an ever- increasing backward pressure on immigra- 
tion until finally an equilibrium will be reached. This 
equilibrium will be attained when all portions of the 
earth, where the struggle for existence is equally severe, 
are populated with an equal density. But, while our 
area is being more thickly populated, other countries 
will conthiue to experience a more and more dense 
population through the medium of natural reproduc- 
tion, and this will tend to favor immigration, perhaps 
for several centuries, unless preventive legislation 
interferes. 

On the other hand, with the tendency of our country 
to maintain peace with the nations of the world, there 
will be less destruction of human life from the source of 
war and its attendant diseases and calamities, while 
the virility of the sex instinct gives no serious evidence 
of diminution. The present indications are that, with 



14 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

respect to the increase of human beings, history will 
repeat itself. Even if the tremendous population an- 
ticipated is not realized within the time above men- 
tioned, yet it is certain to come, if a century more of 
time is needed, thus making the precautions here ap- 
prehended equally valid. 

Let a modern example be cited to show that the 
apprehension of an over-population is not a mere 
phantom. Since Japan threw her doors open to the 
nations of the world, she has had a wonderful increase 
in population. During the past thirty-five years she 
has had a total increase of about sixteen millions. 
Her latest census returns (1908) show a population 
of 49,581,928, or 336 persons to the square mile.^ 
As large portions of the island empire are not arable, 
it has come to pass during recent years that the 
nation is unable to produce enough food for its own 
inhabitants. Most of the imports are foodstuffs. The 
tiller of the soil has been forced to obtain a living 
from the products of a very small area of land — the 
average holding for each family being two and one 
half acres. 2 The system of tillage is extremely thorough, 
two and even three crops being raised annually on one 
piece of land where climatic conditions permit. We 

1 Yamawaki, Haruki: Japan in the Beginning of the Twentieth 
Ce«/z/r>', pp. 48-50. Tokyo-Shoin, Tokyo, 1914. Sec oXso Statesman'' s 
Year-Book for 1910. 

'^Alfred Stead: Japan by the Japanese, p. 413. Dodd, Mead and 
Company, New York, 1904. 



INTENSIVE AGRICULTURE 1 5 

thus see that, during the opening years of the twentieth 
century, there existed an economic necessity for ex- 
pansion.^ The immediate agricultural possibilities of 
the nation had reached their Hmit. The acquisition 
of other lands was necessary, or starvation would be 
the inevitable lot of a portion of the people. The 
solution of the problem was reached by the forced 
annexation of Korea to the empire of Japan, and the 
emigration of large numbers of the Japanese to that 
sparsely inhabited peninsula. 

Our Anglo-Saxon civilization cannot be supported on 
a hungry stomach, or an unclothed or unsheltered 
body. Our people must have ample food, clothing, 
and shelter, if they are to continue the development, 
or only the support, merely, of our very complex and 
high state of civilization. Better a hundred years 
for our country to grow in than, like Rome, a century 
in which to decay. Now is the time to begin to learn 
the great and vital lesson that is sure to be forced upon 
future generations. This is one of the numerous reasons 
why many states are getting ready to teach the sub- 
ject of agriculture in earnest in their schools. It 
not only is a means of present prosperity, but will, it 
is hoped, eventually result in the amehoration of the 
conditions of life for the thousands who are to come 
after us. Sooner than any other class of citizens, the 
American school teachers should awaken to their re- 

1 F. A. McKenzie: The Unveiled East, p. lo. E. P. Button & Com- 
pany, New York, 1907. 



1 6 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

sponsibility in this matter of popular education in 
agriculture, and rise to make an opportunity for the 
introduction of this subject into, and its maintenance 
as a part of, the program of studies in our pubHc schools. 

Review of Chapter II 

Give reasons why — 

1. Agriculture should be taught in the public schools. 

2. The Germans and the Chinese are better agricul- 
turists than the Americans. 

3. We, as a nation, must learn the lesson of intensive 
agriculture, or starve, or fight. 

4. Natural increase in population, immigration, and peace 
will tend to increase the seriousness of the problem. 

5. Japan was forced to solve her agrarian problems with 
war. 

6. The teachers of America should respond to the call 
of agricultural education. 



CHAPTER III 
A POPULAR SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE 

There can be no intensive agriculture without a scien- 
tific agriculture. The conservation of the fertility of 
the soil implies the application of scientific methods 
to the art of plant and animal production. These 
two things are inseparable; for the former is a result 
that may be obtained only through using the latter 
as a means. Before the state can realize the benefits 
of an intensive agriculture, it must first produce a 
generation of farmers who are educated in the princi- 
ples of the science and art of agriculture. 

Unscientific agriculture is wasteful. Just as an auto- 
mobile may be wrecked by an unskilled person who 
does not understand the principles of its operation 
and has not acquired the necessary practice in such 
operation, so the soil may be depleted of its fertility 
by being farmed by one who does not understand the 
underlying principles of soil fertility and the proper 
methods of soil management. Likewise improper 
methods of feeding and caring for live stock, and the 
disposal of animal products, will not secure the high- 
est returns. 

Farmers should approach their life's work with a 
thorough understanding of its underlying principles, 

AGRIC. EDUC. — 2 17 



l8 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

and this knowledge can be received by the vast 
majority of farmers' sons only through the instruc- 
tion which is obtained through the local public 
school. 

The conservation of soil fertility must be emphasized 
and universally taught. Should the farmers of the na- 
tion disregard this need, results more dire than those 
apprehended from over-population would overtake us. 
The unscientific management of the soil would surely 
serve to hasten the impending calamity. Let an ex- 
ample be given. Soil is rarely cultivated more than 
eight inches deep. Most of its available fertility comes 
from the first twelve inches of the surface. Although 
the roots of plants are known to extend many feet into 
the ground, yet these deep penetrations are mostly for 
the purpose of securing additional water. The plant 
food which this deep soil moisture holds in solution may, 
in general, be said to have been dissolved by it as it 
passed through the upper layers of the surface. The 
average chemical analyses of a large number of various 
soils show that the first eight inches of an acre of 
ground contain the three most limited, but positively 
essential, plant foods in round numbers as follows : nitro- 
gen, 3,000 pounds; phosphorus, 4,200; and potassium, 
16,300.^ Furthermore, the amounts of these elements 
removed yearly from an acre of soil by leading crops, 
are, in round numbers, as follows : 

1 Roberts, Isaac Phillips: The Fertility of the Land, p. 14, 1906. 
The Macmillan Company, New York. 



POPULAR SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE 



19 



Approximate Amounts of the Three Most Limited 
Fertilizers Removed Annually prom an Acre of 
Soil by Certain Crops. ^ 



Crop 


Nitrogen 


Phosphorus 


Potassium 


pounds 


pounds 


pounds 


Corn, whole plant, 50 bu. 


75 


15 


35 


Wheat, 25 bu. 


45 


10 


30 


Potatoes, 200 bu. 


40 


10 


60 


Tobacco, 1600 lbs. 


75 


15 


200 


Timothy hay, i K tons 


35 


5 


35 



A soil is exhausted for plant production when any 
element in the soil necessary to plant growth is no 
longer available. This availability ceases long before 
the total supply is exhausted. Although the residue 
is capable of being released by chemical processes, 
it may not be in a soluble condition, and is, there- 
fore, unavailable to the plant. Furthermore, long 
before all the available plant food is exhausted, 
the area of ground becomes economically unproduc- 
tive — or produces uneconomically. Supposing, how- 
ever, that all these elements chemically shown to be 
contained in the first eight inches of soil are avail- 
able, that no additions of these elements are made 
from any source, and that the production of crops 

^ Cf. Hopkins, Cyril G. Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture, 
p. 154, igio. Ginn and Company, Boston. Also, Van Slyke, Lucius 
L., Fertilizers and Crops, p. 177, 1912. Orange Judd Company, New 
York. 



20 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

from an acre would be profitable until the entire amount 
of any of these fertilizing elements were used up, we 
may readily calculate from the preceding table how 
long it would take to exhaust the soil (first eight inches) 
completely. In the case of corn it would take about 
40 years, for the complete supply of nitrogen would 
then be exhausted; in the case of wheat, this exhaustion 
would result in about 66^ years. Suppose that in 
the cultivation of tobacco, the nitrogen and the phos- 
phorus supplies were to be maintained but the po- 
tassium supply were allowed to diminish. In just 81 
years, according to the data given and the conditions 
assumed, tobacco would cease to grow to maturity. 

It will not be necessary to continue these crude es- 
timates any further to emphasize the necessity of 
securing a universal recognition of the importance 
of conserving the fertility of the soil. With the daw^n- 
ing of the day of intensive cultivation for all the 
arable soil of the country, must also come the universal 
education of the farming classes in the scientific prin- 
ciples and practices of husbandry. This means com- 
plete democracy in agricultural education for rural 
people; and the public school is now the only known in- 
stitution through which this task can be efficiently 
and successfully accomplished. 

In almost every community there are one or more 
examples of farmers who continually persist in "bring- 
ing up the rear." They are always late in the most 
important and regular operations of the farm, such 



POP.ULAR SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE 21 

as planting and harvesting corn, wheat, and oats, 
making hay, selling hogs and crops, paying taxes and 
debts. They seem somewhere to have lost one or 
two wTeks out of their lives and have never been able 
to catch up. In most cases this affliction seems to have 
been "transmitted" from father to son for two, three, 
and even four generations; and to-day there are still 
a few farmers in our midst who are suffering the pen- 
alty of the "behind-time" sin that was committed 
by some ancestor during the latter half of the eight- 
eenth century! The seasons, hke time and tide, wait 
for no man. To-day, as in the past, there are too many 
farmers who are content to follow in the footsteps 
of their fathers and grandfathers, no matter whether 
their practices of agriculture were good or bad. It is 
this unscientific practice of blindly following the habit- 
ual methods of farming, whether right or wrong, with- 
out knowing or considering the reasons why, that 
the teaching of agriculture in the rural, elementary 
and secondary schools is designed to remedy. 

In 1862 the Congress of the United States passed the 
Morrill Act by the provisions of which the first state 
agricultural colleges were estabhshed. These insti- 
tutions have been doing an admirable work for over 
half a century, but they have not succeeded in reach- 
ing, as they should, the practical needs of the mass of 
farmers. This failure is recognized by both the agricul- 
tural colleges and the rural population. These higher 
institutions are too far removed from the common 



22 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

farmer and it is the common farmer, his wife, sons, and 
daughters that must somehow be reached. 

On the other hand, an effort has been made to reach 
the country people through the teaching of nature 
study in the elementary schools. Unfortunately, the 
instruction given in this subject usually affords but 
a very meager knowledge of the principles and prac- 
tices of real agriculture. It has been, and still is, 
pursued for the avowed purpose of getting acquainted 
with a few of the more striking phases of nature, and 
its aim is chiefly aesthetic. The most fundamental 
and elementary principles of agriculture are not touched 
and never would be learned, if we depended upon 
nature study for them. 

The only way, then, to reach the masses and impart 
to them the knowledge of the scientific principles of 
agriculture is through the medium of the pubhc schools. 
Here the present generation of farmers' sons and 
daughters, and the young people of the cities who 
may become interested in farming and country hfe, 
may be taught the theory and practice of scientific 
agriculture. That the instruction in the elemental 
principles of agriculture in the pubhc schools does 
give effective results is no longer a theory to be dem- 
onstrated at some future time, but we have evidence 
that it makes such results a matter of history. One 
reason why the people of Germany secure such good 
returns from their soil is attributed to this cause. 
More striking still is the fact that European peasants 



POPULAR SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE 23 

who migrate to America from Germany, Belgium, 
Holland, France, Denmark, and Sweden invariably 
outstrip our native farmers in raising crops. They 
know the essentials of spraying, tillage, soil fertility, 
feeding, breeding, etc. They have been taught these 
things from their youth up in the public schools of 
their native lands. It is indisputable that immigrants 
from the north-European countries have converted 
into productive, thriving, and well-stocked farms, 
lands upon which the average American farmer could 
not have subsisted. In New England, these people 
are even now beginning to reclaim the abandoned 
farmsteads, and once more the fields of the Pil- 
grim Fathers are to bloom and bear fruitage. "Nor 
should this success be attributed — as it so often is — 
to a lower scale of living on the part of the foreign- 
bom farmer. The real secret of their success is thrift 
and knowledge of the essentials of scientific farming. 
Americans should take the lesson to heart, for in this 
respect Europeans can yet teach us important educa- 
tional facts." ^ 

Scientific agriculture, as it should be taught in the 
schools, prepares for the business of farming. About 
one third of our people are engaged in this business, 
and there will always be a large percentage of them 
employed in the noble work of providing food and cloth- 
ing for mankind. In the various professions, as in 

1 See H. W. Foght: The Rural School of the Tweniielh Century, 
pp.185-6. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1910. 



24 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

law, medicine, teaching, and preaching, men have 
long realized the necessity for a more or less thorough 
preparation before beginning active work in these 
callings. Even in the trades, young men are com- 
pelled to serve a term of apprenticeship before they are 
enabled to perform the work of a master mechanic. 
In agriculture, however, the matter has been quite 
different. We used to say, "Anybody can farm." 
That was only another way of saying that every one 
knew all there was to be known on the subject, and, 
as there were but few principles and facts to be fol- 
lowed, almost anybody could engage in the industry 
with assured success. But we no longer speak as we 
used to. During the past half -century, the agricultural 
colleges and experiment stations of the nation have 
been ferreting out the facts of nature, and from these 
have been drawn many principles and laws applica- 
ble to plant and animal production. There is now a 
large body of facts, principles, and laws that are being 
pedagogically organized for the purpose of agricultural 
instruction in the rural, elementary, and high schools. 
It takes brains to farm. A twentieth-century farmer 
must have more or less thorough knowledge of botany, 
zoology, chemistry, physics, meteorology, bacteriology, 
geology, mechanics, veterinary medicine, law, eco- 
nomics, and business, — besides a knowledge of the 
branches usually taught in the elementar}^ schools. 
Men that farm by rote seldom make good farmers. 
Not all the duties of the farm can be reduced to au- 



POPULAR SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE 25 

tomatisms, because they are too many and too va- 
ried. A large share of them depend upon the natural 
conditions of weather, soil, air, and sunlight. Some 
of the farm work may be done indoors, but most of 
it is done under the open sky. To perfectly adapt and 
successfully apply the principles of agriculture under 
these varied conditions, which are multitudinous in 
number, one must have a superior intelligence — an 
intelligence above that of the average man. In the 
factory, the shop, the office, and the store one does 
not meet with such an infinite variety of conditions. 
The store has its regular system and routine; the office, 
its regular business forms and card indexes; the shop, 
its comparatively small round of labor; and the factory, 
a single, simple piece of work for each person. Not 
very complex thought processes are involved in the 
work of the man who operates a single machine in a 
factory from day to day throughout the year, or who 
plugs the air holes in the tin cans in a canning factory; 
nor of the woman who sews the single seam in a certain 
garment, or who operates the typewriter eight or ten 
hours a day. Indeed, the young man who aspires to 
the high place of an agriculturist needs a more thorough 
preparation than the common laborer, the clerk, or 
the artisan. 

Review of Chapter III 

What relationship exists between an intensive and a 
scientific agriculture? Why is an unscientific agriculture 



26 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

wasteful? Why should the conservation of the fertility of 
the soil be universally taught? How long does it take to 
deplete the soil with some of the common crops of the 
farm? What is the nature and the penalty of the behind- 
time sin? Why have the agricultural colleges and nature 
study teaching failed to reach the masses of farmers? What 
is the plan advocated for reaching the rank and file of the 
country people? What proof have we that the plan will 
work? Why is it more essential for the farmer of the 
future to be educated in agriculture than it was for his 
ancestors? Why does it take brains to farm? 



CHAPTER rV 

THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE TEACHER 
OF AGRICULTURE 

Everywhere teachers are looking out for first aids 
in teaching agriculture, when they ought to be looking 
in. The first aids come from within, and consist of 
those peculiar, personal characteristics that are es- 
sential to success in any given undertaking. With 
reference to rural and agricultural matters these quali- 
ties are indigenous to the soil and the open country; 
city influences and environment tend to drive them 
out of the lives of men, but the free and open life of 
the farm fosters their growth and development. Some 
persons are capable of acquiring these rural qualities, 
while others are not. There are certain other qualifi- 
cations that can be attained only by the process of 
formal education. In reference to the teaching of 
agriculture in the public schools, let us see what the 
most important of these various attainments are. 

1. Rural mindedness. — Of the many characteris- 
tics that a teacher of agriculture should possess, one of 
the first and most essential is that of rural mindedness. 
This characteristic is a kind of spiritual possession 
and manifests itself in a love for things rural. If we 
love boys and girls who have been reared on the farm; 

27 



28 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

if we react sympathetically toward their environment; 
if we take a genuine delight in the growing of wheat, 
corn, potatoes, beans, and other crops of the field and 
garden; if we feel kindly toward horses and cattle, 
sheep and hogs, turkeys and chickens; if we are in- 
terested in the plow, the mower, the binder, the wagon, 
the corn cutter, the separator; if we appreciate the 
need of properly locating buildings, ditches, fences, 
gates, and driveways; if we reaHze that business meth- 
ods must be appUed to farm operations; if we are not 
repulsed by a pair of overalls or by digging in the soil 
with our hands; if we like to hoe, spade, rake, plow, 
pitch hay, milk cows, chop wood, and haul manure, — • 
if we are attracted by these things, we are rural minded. 
If these things are repulsive to us, then we are not yet 
ready to teach agriculture most effectively to the 
boys and girls of the country. 

Seek first to become rural minded. It is a spiritual 
quahty that may be acquired; be, therefore, not dis- 
couraged, if you chance to find yourself out of tune 
with the rural environment of the children that you 
are to teach. Open your mind and heart to the sweet 
and strong influences of country life, accept the rough 
exteriors as signs of sturdy characters beneath, and, 
mayhap, you too, will be granted the useful and happy 
life and experience of the farmer. 

2. Enthusiasm. — If one has the spirit of the farmer, 
then he is hkely to attain its manifestation: he will 
be enthusiastic about rural life and the objects through 



QUALIFICATIONS OF THE TEACHER 29 

which it expresses itself. He will have a wonderful 
vision of ripe grains, luscious fruits, fine stock, fertile 
fields, warm and neat clothing, comfortable homes, 
efficient schools, prosperous churches, good citizens, 
and a Christian people rising as by magic out of the 
materials and the labors with which the farmer so 
joyously employs himself. Every young teacher 
should remember that enthusiasm for the new gospel 
of agricultural education, will, at the beginning of his 
career, cover a multitude of pedagogical sins and a 
heap of ignorance. Better than that, it will also start 
him to work; and if he is made of the right kind of stuff, 
no one need be fearful of the outcome. 

3. Harmonious adjustment. — In many instances, es- 
pecially with women teachers, there must be a gen- 
uine desire for readjustment. All their lives, many 
of them have been out of harmony with their own 
and their children's environment. They have been 
out of tune with the farm life, and many need retuning. 
For instance, the silly fear of toads must be dropped. 
And how, indeed, can a teacher who is afraid of cows, 
successfully teach the many practical lessons in animal 
studies! There are teachers who, perhaps all their 
lives, have regarded swine as dirty and repulsive 
beasts, and yet who relish a fine pork roast. "What 
God hath cleansed, make not thou common. " 

Besides attaching repulsive attributes to certain 
objects of the farm, many people are in the habit of 
thinking of certain other things in the spirit of vulgar- 



30 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

ness. What a noble animal is a prize bull! And yet 
some prudes slander him by calling him a "steer". 
Let us, as intelligent men and women, divorce all vul- 
gar thoughts from the words: hen, mare, ewe, sow, 
jenny, rooster, buck, bull, stallion, ass, teats, stud, 
manure, and a score of other terms of the farm that 
ought to be inviolable, because they represent things 
that are essential to human life. Let us call things 
by their right names in a natural way. Evil thoughts 
are not inherent in these tenns, although it must be 
admitted that they are often found associated with 
the vice sores in the minds and hearts of some persons. 

4. Professional knowledge. — The true teacher will 
need more than the spirit of rural mindedness, its re- 
sulting enthusiasm, and a harmonious adjustment 
to farm life. He will need correct professional knowl- 
edge of what to teach, and how and when to teach it. 
There are many facts and principles included in the 
great fund of agricultural knowledge that should be 
taught in the elementary school; there are a great 
many more that should not be attempted there, and 
any effort to teach them will result in inevitable 
failure. There are certain seasons when certain things 
agricultural may best be taught, and to neglect or 
disregard this fact is folly. There are pedagogical 
methods of approach to the mind of the child by 
means of a scientific (pedagogically speaking) sequence 
of the materials. To blunder in this regard may re- 
sult in the defeat of the effort to establish desirable 



QUALIFICATIONS OF THE TEACHER 31 

knowledge, habits, aims, and ideals in the mind and 
the life of the child. Laboratory and industrial methods 
of instruction must be employed, because agriculture 
is a physical science and deals with the most common 
materials that enter into the experience of country 
children. There is the art side of the whole field of 
agricultural education, which is equally important 
with the science side, and to teach the science of agri- 
culture to the neglect of the art of agriculture will 
place a one-sided emphasis upon the whole subject. 

Review of Cil\pter IV 

Discuss — The first aids in the preparation to teach agri- 
culture. Rural mindedness. Enthusiasm. Harmonious 
adjustment. Professional knowledge. 



CHAPTER V 

THE PREPARATION OF TEACHERS TO 
TEACH AGRICULTURE 

The work of preparation to teach agriculture in the 
public schools in compliance with the demands of the 
times, is now one of the chief considerations of no fewer 
than one hundred thousand teachers in the United 
States, and it is quite probable that the number of 
such teachers is much greater. Multitudes of teachers 
are seeking to know how they may most quickly pre- 
pare themselves to teach this subject in order to hold 
their positions, to pass examinations, to seize op- 
portunities to rise in their profession, to become more 
efficient teachers of agriculture, or to secure popular- 
ity. Thousands of supervisors — especially village, 
township, county, and state superintendents — are 
considering ways and means of accomplishing this 
gigantic undertaking, if happily, they are not con- 
fronted with the more serious task of acquiring some 
degree of training in this subject for themselves. When 
we consider that the demand is insistent, that the 
preparation must be immediate, and that with the 
great majority of teachers, this preparation must go 
forward while they are in service, we begin to reaUze 
the seriousness of the situation that now confronts us. 

32 



PREPARATION OF TEACHERS $$ 

This view of the situation may seem rather discourag- 
ing, but we are only reviewing conditions as they really 
exist. To seem pessimistic is not intended; only the 
seriousness of our problem must not be overlooked. 
It is through optimism, and not pessimism, that great 
problems are solved. The task of aiding teachers to 
teach some agriculture in the public schools is before 
us and something must be done at once. Of course, not 
much can be accomplished in the short space of time 
that popular clamor will give to us for this purpose, 
because it will be a decade before agriculture is taught 
in the public schools as it should be. The magnitude 
of the problem is such that this cannot be otherwise. 
It becomes necessary, therefore, to make use of every 
available means of at once getting the teaching forces 
of the country "into the harness." 

Two motives will guide teachers in their efforts to 
prepare for teaching agriculture: namely, preparation 
to satisfy some extraneous desire, as the retaining of 
a position, the passing of an examination, or the at- 
taining of some degree of popularity; and preparation 
to teach agriculture for the sake of becoming a more 
efficient teacher. For the vast majority of teachers 
the attainment of any extrinsic object, as the prepar- 
ing to take an examination in agriculture, for instance, 
will not be synonymous with preparing to teach the 
subject to the pupils in the best possible way. The 
attainment of the latter aim requires a gradual, sys- 
tematic, and progressive pursuance of the elementary 

AGRIC. EDUC. — 3 



34 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

and fundamental facts, principles, and processes of 
agriculture after some organized plan; besides this, 
time must be given to work over all this science and 
art into lesson plans for teaching purposes. The 
preparation-for-examination aim involves the memor- 
iter method of learning definitions and static facts. 
It also necessitates an extensive and hurried excur- 
sion over the field of knowledge involved, in which 
little depth is attained, and it invariably results in 
distorted notions about related topics; while the proc- 
esses, which form a very important part of educa- 
tion in agriculture, cannot be experienced. A prep- 
aration of this sort is universally condemned by the 
foremost educators. We shall, therefore, allow this 
motive to preparation to pass from our consideration 
and recall the first, which is the real one, — the prepar- 
ation to teach the subject in the best way. All other 
motives should be entirely subordinated and made only 
incidental to this. 

The imparting of professional knowledge in its two- 
fold phase of content and method is the great prob- 
lem in the formal training of teachers to teach agri- 
culture. They must know the things they teach. 
Scholarship is the first requisite to the true success 
of a master teacher. Furthermore, the necessity of 
having a generally accepted working philosophy of 
teaching agriculture in the public school is very ur- 
gent. Though not now the most immediately urgent, 
the greatest problems of teaching agriculture in the 



PREPARATION OF TEACHERS 35 

public schools are pedagogical, and not those of a 
technical scientific nature. An enormous mass of 
scientific agricultural facts, principles, and laws has 
been discovered and formulated by the agricultural 
colleges and experiment stations during the past half- 
century. The problem of choosing and adapting a 
portion of this knowledge and practice for use in pubHc 
elementary and secondary schools has not yet been 
fully solved. Agricultural teaching is still in its in- 
fancy. The best methods of teaching elementary and 
secondary agriculture are now in their inception, and 
teachers, generally, have given little attention to the 
pedagogy of industrial subjects. 

Preparing to teach agriculture, then, involves two 
phases: namely, the learning of the facts and prin- 
ciples of agriculture, coupled with experience in farm 
practice, and the learning of the pedagogy of agri- 
culture, which also involves theory and practice. 
The close coordination of these two phases of train- 
ing in the preparation of teachers to teach agricul- 
ture is essential. 

Review of Chapter V 

Explain— The magnitude of the work of preparing teach- 
ers to teach agriculture. The two motives that prompt 
teachers in preparing to teach agriculture. The great 
problems in the formal training of teachers to teach agri- 
culture. The two phases involved in agricultural teacher- 
training. 



CHAPTER VI 

AGENCIES FOR THE PREPARATION OF 
TEACHERS 

A BRIEF consideration of the various ways and means 
available for the preparation of public school teachers 
to teach agriculture may prove helpful. 

1. Home study is always a source of help to earnest 
teachers who have the inclination, the initiative, the 
persistence, and the self-denial necessary to pursue it. 
Those who intend to direct their own work are ad- 
vised to select for consecutive study a good elemen- 
tary or secondary textbook, of which there are now 
several on the market.^ This study should be supple- 
mented with the reading of bulletins from the colleges 
of agriculture, the agricultural experiment stations, 
and the United States Department of Agriculture on 
the various topics treated. Moreover, constant and 
careful reference should be made to the objects and 
practices on a farm managed by a good farmer, which 
should be regarded as the indispensable laboratory 
of the course. This method of preparation is to be 
recommended only to those teachers who have no other 
opportunity open to them. 

Under this head should also come the home study 

1 See pp. 41-42, for a list of recommended books. 
36 



agencip:s for preparation 37 

carried on under the direction of correspondence 
schools and the correspondence courses of land-grant 
colleges, and the progressive and often truly construc- 
tive work accomplished through the medium of efficient 
teachers' reading circles. 

2. Teachers' institutes, if competent instructors in 
agricultural education are available in sufficient 
numbers, may offer some help. This means of in- 
struction may become more important as teachers 
increase their knowledge of agriculture. However, 
ten well selected, typical subjects, with a liberal use 
of practical exercises, properly treated in a one week's 
session of a teachers' institute, may not only be a means 
of inspiration to the teachers, but may serve to direct 
them in their teaching by indicating proper methods; 
may be of assistance in the further pursuit of the 
subject of agriculture begun at the institute and may 
explain many things not before understood. Officials 
in charge of teachers' institutes are everywhere be- 
ginning to employ instructors in agricultural education, 
and the serious efforts that are being made in many 
places to reclaim the institute from the domination 
of the mere entertainer are to be commended. 

3. Teachers' meetings. — There are in every state, a 
few superintendents, high school principals, and teach- 
ers, who are qualified to give some good, practical 
work in agriculture to the teachers in their respective 
communities. Under the leadership of these persons, 
the teachers of a community may do much effective 



38 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

work during the months of active service. One in- 
stance especially comes to mind. In Ohio, a superin- 
tendent of village schools, who is also a district su- 
perintendent, held regular, weekly meetings of all 
the teachers under his supervision, for the purpose of 
giving instruction in school agriculture. This man 
had taken courses in agricultural education and teach- 
ing at a summer session of the state university; and 
from week to week in teachers' meetings, he presented 
the materials of instruction by the very methods that 
the teachers were expected to use in the teaching of 
the same lessons to their pupils. The school work in 
agriculture in the community under the jurisdiction of 
this superintendent for that first year proved very 
satisfactory. A similar plan is recommended to other 
superintendents who have at heart the good of the 
teachers and pupils under their supervision. 

4. The summer sessions of nearly all universities, 
colleges, and normal schools now offer courses in agri- 
culture. The work is usually given by specialists 
in agricultural teaching, and their instruction is of 
a very high character. By earnest apphcation during 
one summer, hundreds of teachers have secured a 
sufficient preparation to pilot them safely through 
the year. All teachers who can do so should attend 
the summer session in some good institution and 
pursue the course in agriculture best adapted to their 
needs. 

It seems advisable, for the present and perhaps for 



AGENCIES FOR PREPARATION 39 

some years to come, that the courses in agriculture 
given at summer sessions should be of a rather gen- 
eral character. This does not necessarily mean that 
they need be exploitative courses; indeed, they should 
not be, and instructors will do well to provide against 
such a policy. The content training for the elementary 
school teacher, or the teacher of a rural or village 
high school where only a one-year course in agricul- 
ture is taught more as a cultural than a vocational 
subject, needs to be quite different from that for the 
person who is a prospective candidate for a department 
in an agricultural high school, for the department of 
agricultural education in a normal school or a teachers' 
college, for a department of an agricultural college, 
or for practical farming. 

SpeciaHsts in the various fields of human endeavor 
seem slow to learn and quick to forget the general 
nature of the field in which the American school teacher 
is compelled to labor. The legitimate work of the 
elementary and high schools must necessarily be 
elementary and general, but fundamental. The aver- 
age public school teacher needs a general view of 
the subject, a grounding in the fundamentals by the 
use of typical concrete materials necessary for definite 
and adequate illustration and practice. All non- 
essentials for the actual and immediate work of his 
particular sphere of teaching should be left out. Sum- 
mer schools ought to meet such requirements by offer- 
ing, (a) a course in elementary agriculture, (b) a course 



40 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

in secondary agriculture, and (c) a course in agricultural 
teaching. The majority of teachers will have neither 
the time nor the inclination to give this single phase 
of their work more extended attention in the summer 
school. That is the only time when teachers in active 
service may attend institutions of learning to acquaint 
themselves with the new developments of their pro- 
fession and to renew their acquaintance with the older 
subjects, which are quite as essential as the new ones. 
This must not be construed to mean that a more ex- 
tended training than here recommended for the sum- 
mer school would not be beneficial or advisable; it 
certainly is to be advised and commended, but this is 
a consideration for the person who is pursuing an ex- 
tended college course during the regular college year, 
and cannot apply, except in rare cases, to the active 
teacher who is the patron of the summer school. Nor 
do we mean to suggest that a few of the more technical 
courses of the college of agriculture should not be 
offered for those persons who may desire to pursue an 
extended agricultural course by doing consecutive 
work therein summer after summer. These more 
comprehensive courses of the technical college have 
their place in the summer school, if they are pursued 
by those persons who have an aim similar to that under 
which such courses were constructed and are offered. 

Note. — The following works on elementary and secondary agri- 
culture are especially recommended for use as guides in home 
study: 



AGENCIES FOR PREPARATION 41 

Books for High School Teachers 

Bailey, L. H.: The Principles of Agriculture, 1907, pp. 300. The 
Macmillan Company, New York. 

Brooks, William V.: Agriculture, three volumes, 1905, pp. 856. The 
Home Correspondence School, Springfield, Mass. 

Davis, Kary Cadmus: Productive Farming, 191 1, pp. 357. J. B. 
Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. 

Halligan, James Edward: Fundamentals of Agriculture, 19 10, 
pp. 490. D. C. Heath and Company, Boston. 

Jackson, C. R., and Daugherty, Mrs. L. S.: Agriculture Through the 
Laboratory and School Garden, 1908, pp. 450. Orange Judd Company, 
New York. 

Kyle, Edwin Jackson, and EUis, Alexander Caswell: Fundamentals 
of Farming and Farm Life, 1912, pp. 557. Charles Scribner's Sons, 
New York. 

Mayne, D. D., and Hatch, K. L.: High School Agriculture, 1913, 
pp. 432. American Book Company, New York. 

Warren, G. F.: Elements of Agriculture, 1910, pp. 434. The Mac- 
millan Company, New York. 

Books for Elementary School Teachers 

Burkett, Charles William; Stevens, Frank Lincoln; and Hill, 
Daniel Harvey: Agriculture for Beginners, 1904, pp. 339. Ginn and 
Company, Boston. 

Ferguson, A. M., and Lewis, L. L.: Elementary Principles of Ag- 
ricidture, 1909, pp. 318. Ferguson Publishing Company, Sherman, 
Texas. 

Fisher, Martin L., and Cotton, Fassett A.: Agriculture for Common 
Schools, 1909, pp. 381. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 

Mann, Albert R.: Beginnings in Agriculture, 1911, pp. 317. The 
Macmillan Company, New York. 

Nida, William L.: Elementary Agriculture, 1913, pp. 240. A. Flana- 
gan Company, Chicago. 

Nolan, Aretas W.: One Hundred Lessons in Agriculture, 191 1, 
pp. 351. Row, Peterson and Company, Chicago. 

Soule, Andrew M., and Turpin, Edna Henry: Agriculture: Its 



42 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

Fundamental Principles, 1907, pp. 320. B. F. Johnson Publishing 
Company, Richmond, Va. 

Stebbins, C. A.: The Principles of Agriculture, 1913, pp. 380. The 
Macmillan Company, New York. 

Upham, A. A.: An Introduction to Agriculture, 1910, pp. 270. D. 
Appleton and Company, New York. 

Wilkinson, John W.: Practical Agriculture, 1909, pp. 383. Ameri- 
can Book Company, New York. 

Wilson, A. D. and E. W.: Agriculture for Young Folks, 19 10, 
pp. 340. Webb Publishing Company, St. Paul. 

Wood, Milo N.: School Agriculture, 191 2, pp. 329. Orange Judd 
Company, New York. 

Pedagogical. — The following pedagogical books on agricultural 
education arc also recommended: 

Brickcr, Garland Armor: The Teaching of Agriculture in the High 
School, 1911, pp. XXV-}- 202. The Macmillan Company, New York. 
This book is devoted to the instructional phase of the subject. 

Davis, Benjamin Marshall -.Agricultural Education in Public Schools, 
191 2, pp. vi+ 159. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. This 
is a study of the development of agricultural education, with partic- 
ular reference to the agencies concerned. 

Robison, Clarence Hall: Agricultural Instruction in the Public 
High Schools of the United States, 1911, pp. viii+ 205. Teachers 
College, Columbia University, New York. The administrative 
phases of the subject are discussed in this book. 

5. Teachers' extension schools. ^ — The " Nelson Amend- 
ment" (34 Stat. L. 1281), approved March 4, 1907, 
and effective for the fiscal year ending June 30, 
1908, provided for increasing, at the rate of $5,000 a 
year for five years, the funds appropriated by the Fed- 
eral Government to the several states and territories 

1 The first complete account of these schools, was published in 
The School Review, Vol. XX, pp. 266-270, April, 191 2. 



AGENCIES FOR PREPARATION 43 

for the support of the colleges of agriculture. A pro- 
viso in the act makes it permissible for the land-grant 
colleges to devote a part of this twenty-five- thousand 
dollar increase "for providing courses for the special 
preparation of instructors for teaching the elements 
of agriculture and the mechanic arts." 

Until recently, the funds derived from this source 
were permitted to be used by the land-grant colleges 
on the campus only. On November 2, 191 1, the 
Attorney-General of the United States promulgated the 
following rulings in reference to the use of the Nelson 
fund: 

"No part of the funds received under the provisions of 
the acts of 1890 and 1907 may be used for any form of 
extension work, and all instruction must be given at the 
institutions receiving these funds, except that a reasonable 
portion of the funds provided by the act of 1907 may be 
used for the instruction of teachers in agriculture, mechanic 
arts, and domestic science in summer schools, teachers' 
institutes, and by correspondence, and in supervising and 
directing work in these subjects in high schools. 

"All or a part of the funds provided by the act of March 4, 
1907, may be used ' for providing courses for the special 
preparation of instructors for teaching the elements of agri- 
cuhure and mechanic arts.' It is held that this language 
authorizes expenditures for instruction in the history of 
agriculture and industrial education, in methods of teaching 
agriculture, mechanic arts, and home economics, and also 
for special aid and supervision given to teachers actively 
engaged in teaching agriculture, mechanic arts, and home 



44 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

economics in public schools. It does not authorize expendi- 
tures for general courses in pedagogy, psychology, history 
of education, and methods of teaching." ^ 

In each state, therefore, there exists a financial means 
for carrying on teachers' extension schools in agri- 
culture, domestic arts, and farm mechanics through 
the initiative of the land-grant colleges, if only the 
governing bodies of these institutions desire to apply 
a portion of the Nelson fund for that purpose. 

During the school year 1911-1912, a plan for carrying 
on teachers' extension schools for the training of teachers 
engaged in active service in the elements of agriculture 
and the methods of teaching the same, was worked out 
experimentally under the auspices of the College of Edu- 
cation and Agriculture of the Ohio State University. A 
school was started at Circleville, Ohio, in connection 
with the bimonthly session of the Pickaway County 
Teachers' Institute, October 28th, 191 1, for the purpose 
of instructing the teachers of Pickaway and adjoining 
Counties in the elements of agriculture and the pedagogy 
of teaching the same. As soon as the rulings of the 
Attorney-General were made known, money from the 
Nelson fund was at once applied to help defray the ex- 
penses of this school. Doubtless this was the first school 
of its kind in the United States to use Nelson funds for 
the training of employed teachers. On January 13 and 

1 See pp. II, 12, of the United States Bureau of Education bulletin 
of 1 911 entitled Federal Laws, Regulations and Rulings Ajffeding the 
Land-Grant Colleges of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. 



AGENCIES FOR PREPARATION 45 

20, 191 2, similar schools were begun at Mt. Vernon and 
Van Wert, Ohio, respectively. 

For the benefit of others who may wish to institute 
similar schools, a brief description of how to organ- 
ize and manage them is here given. 

The first step is the appointment of a local leader, 
known as the Chairman of the Executive Committee, 
who wUl with others, work to create sentiment for the 
proposed school, present the plan to the teachers at 
their meetings and elsewhere, and secure from them 
pledges of attendance. In the meantime brief articles 
on the nature and purposes of the school should be 
sent out to all the newspapers in the county where it 
is contemplated holding the proposed school. Invita- 
tions to become members of the school should also be 
sent to all the teachers of the county. The local leader 
may be furnished with pledge cards upon which to se- 
cure the names and addresses of the teachers who pledge 
attendance. When fifty such pledges are secured, the 
cards are filed with the college or university, and the 
teachers' extension school is granted to the county or 
community seeking it. The sessions should be held in 
the town most easily accessible to the majority of 
the teachers — usually the county seat. 

A membership fee of twenty-five cents, payable at 
the first meeting, may be required of each member, and 
the sum thus realized used by the executive committee 
to defray the local expenses of the school. All other 
expenses — the salary of the instructor, and his rail- 



46 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

road and hotel expenses — will be assumed by the uni- 
versity. 

The complete organization of the school should be ef- 
fected at the first meeting. Each school requires at least 
four officers besides the university professor who exer- 
cises general supervision over its instructional activities, 
and the chairman of the executive committee. These 
officers are : a secretary, a treasurer, a librarian, and a 
doorkeeper, who together with the chairman constitute 
the executive committee. The executive committee 
has general charge of the local business matters of the 
school. 

A press committee is also usually appointed by the 
chairman of the executive committee. This committee 
furnishes brief reports to the local press concerning 
the instruction and the progress of the school. 

The school should be divided into two classes, A and B. 
This division is made in order to reduce the number 
of books necessary for one school. There may be two 
sets of books, one set on the teaching of agriculture 
and the other on the content matter of agriculture. 
At the first meeting, references in the first set of books 
are assigned to class A, and references in the second 
set, to class B ; at the second meeting, the sets of books 
together with the corresponding references are in- 
terchanged between the two classes. A new assign- 
ment of reading is made at the third, and thereafter 
at each odd-numbered meeting. The members of 
the school may or may not read the assignments. 



AGENCIES FOR PREPARATION 47 

Experience has shown, however, that in the major- 
ity of cases the reading is done. The members are 
given to understand from the outset, that each indi- 
vidual will derive benefit from the school in the direct 
ratio of his own efforts. Incidentally, the division 
into classes affords the basis for creating a healthy 
rivalry between them, which may often be used to 
good advantage. 

The equipment of the school may be very simple. A 
room in which to meet regularly must be provided. 
Large schoolrooms and high school assembly rooms 
have been found very satisfactory for this purpose, 
especially where there are a sufficient number of in- 
dividual desks upon which the notebooks, the agri- 
cultural materials, and the simple apparatus may 
be placed. The commodious blackboard of the school- 
room will also be a welcome feature. The agricultural 
materials should be brought to the school mostly by 
the teachers from the local farms. The simpler ap- 
paratus needed may be provided by the executive 
committee, while the more expensive should be brought 
from the university. In Ohio, the Traveling Library 
Department of the state library was especially courte- 
ous and helpful in furnishing a select list of textbooks 
for reference reading. 

The sessions usually are held on Saturdays, there 
being two meetings to each session, one in the morn- 
ing and one in the afternoon. The meetings may be 
an hour and a half to two hours long. They may be 



48 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

held on consecutive or on alternate Saturdays, the 
latter plan being found the better. When the alter- 
nate-Saturday plan is used, one instructor may con- 
duct two schools at the same time. These schools 
in Ohio continued for six sessions. 

The aim should be to make the instruction so practical 
and definite that the teachers in attendance may use 
the materials and methods given them in their own 
schools during the two intervening weeks. That the 
teachers appreciate the opportunity thus afforded them 
will be seen from the fact that the enrollment in 
the first school, held at Circleville, was sixty-two, 
and several of the teachers attended the school at 
a personal expenditure of several dollars. At Mt. 
Vernon the enrollment was seventy-two on the first 
day, the rural teachers braving the severe cold of a 
morning when the mercury stood 15° below zero. The 
school at Van Wert enrolled eighty-eight on the first 
day. The total enrollments of these schools reached 
one hundred five and one hundred twenty, respec- 
tively. 

The possibilities of the teachers' extension school 
are very great. By enlarging its scope through the 
presentation of additional subjects, it may well be- 
come a worthy successor to both the teachers' insti- 
tute and the reading circle. By supplementing the 
available Nelson fund with the sums usually spent 
on the institute and the reading circle, a teachers' 
extension school might be carried forward on alternate 




A LESSON ON THE COW AT A TEACHERS' INSTITUTE 




A SUMMER-SCHOOL CLASS OF TEACHERS STUDYING THE PLOW 



AGENCIES FOR PREPARATION 49 

Saturdays throughout the greater portion of the school 
year. Again, it would be possible to reach the children 
in the public schools more effectively than is now done, 
with authentic information and approved methods 
of teaching. Through a school of this kind, attended 
regularly by fifty teachers, each of whom has twenty 
pupils, it is possible to reach one thousand children 
immediately and effectively. With a teachers' ex- 
tension school in each county, from 50,000 to 100,000 
public school pupils could be reached in each year 
in the larger states. This is an extremely rapid and 
effective means by which to spread the light of popular 
industrial education. The surprising thing is that a 
similar method of preparing teachers who are in active 
service was not long ago instituted. 

The following scheme is suggested whereby any state 
may institute a system of teachers' extension schools. 
The county is taken as the unit. 

One fourth as many schoolmen as there are counties 
in the state should be invited to attend the summer 
session of the land-grant college for the purpose of 
pursuing a course of instruction designed to prepare 
them for conducting teachers' extension schools. These 
persons should be leaders in rural school affairs and 
be interested in agricultural teaching. With these 
instructors in charge, and by the use of the alternate- 
Saturday plan, one half of the extension schools may 
be carried on in as many counties of the state from 
October to December, while the same number of schools 

AGRIC. EDUC. — 4 



50 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

may be carried on by the same force of instructors in 
the remaining counties of the state after the holidays, 
from January to March. Since the sessions would be 
held on Saturdays, the schoolmen in charge could do 
this work in addition to their regular employment. 

By way of remuneration for the time spent in prep- 
aration at the summer session, and for the actual work 
of instruction, these extension school instructors should 
be paid a sum of $10.00 to $15.00 a week for their 
services, they paying their own necessary expenses — • 
railroad fares and hotel bills — from this sum. The 
local, incidental expenses of the school may be paid 
from the fund realized from the small registration fee 
of twenty-five cents, required from each member. 
The money for paying the salaries of the instructors 
would, of course, be appropriated by the land-grant 
college from the Nelson fund. The whole system 
of teachers' extension schools would be under the 
direction and supervision of the department of agri- 
cultural education located at the college. 

The cost of such a system of schools, using Ohio as 
an example, with a force of twenty-two instructors, 
each school being run for twelve weeks on alternate 
Saturdays, and each instructor being paid the sum of 
twelve dollars a Saturday, would be $6,336. If a 
fifty-volume library of suitable books for reference 
reading were provided for each school, an additional 
sum of about $2,000 would be required. This is a total 
sum of $8,336; or, if 90,000 children were reached — 



AGENCIES FOR PREPARATION 51 

which would be a much smaller number than would 
result by using in our calculations the average reached 
by the three trial schools — less than 9 cents per capita. 
In addition to this over 5,000 teachers would receive 
some genuine, practical training and no small amount of 
enthusiasm, both of which would add a wonderful 
impetus to the educational endeavor in rural com- 
munities. In this day, when popular education is 
coming to be considered a serious economic problem, 
the plan set forth in this section ought to arrest the 
attention of those interested in state as well as in 
educational affairs. 

6. Normal school and college courses. — The agencies 
we have named are designed to meet the needs of 
employed teachers. They are expedients to supply 
the necessary information and help to teachers who 
have not hitherto had the opportunity of securing a 
more or less adequate training for the task of teaching 
agriculture. It becomes more imperative year by year 
that teachers of agriculture prepare themselves most 
thoroughly for their work. To this end they should 
seek to pursue and complete appropriate courses in 
agricultural education or agricultural teaching at those 
educational institutions best prepared to serve the 
teaching profession in this respect. 

There are four factors that influence the organiza- 
tion of courses in agricultural education: (a) the tech- 
nical, (b) the professional, (c) the general training 
courses that are more or less contributory to the effi- 



52 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

ciency of the agricultural teacher, and (d) the ad- 
ministrative, including economy. 

(a) Technical training. — The technical training that 
a teacher of agriculture may be expected to attain 
will depend upon the kind of school in which he in- 
tends to teach, whether in an elementary school, a 
general ^ high school, a normal school, a generaP col- 
lege, an agricultural high school, or an agricultural col- 
lege. As a fundamental, working principle, it may be 
stated that the technical training of all such teachers 
should begin the same and become accumulative in 
the order in wliich the schools in the foregoing list 
are mentioned. 

Laboratory and field work, including the organizing 
and operating of a demonstration field and home proj- 
ects, should be provided for. A course of this character 
gives the proper perspective to the various depart- 
ments of agricultural science and art and constitutes 
an indispensable basis for the special application of 
the principles of pedagogy to agricultural teaching, 
besides making an excellent foundation upon which 
to build a specialized study in any of the various de- 
partments of agriculture. The acquisition of this 
training should be accomplished by pursuing a course 
in the elements of general agriculture, which should rep- 
resent at least one fourth of one year's study. 

A course of technical agriculture, like that outlined 

^ The word " general " as here used has reference to the academic, 
non-technical schools. 



AGENCIES FOR PREPARATION 53 

in the preceding paragraph, is deemed sufficient also 
for the teachers in the general, non-technical high 
schools where only short courses are offered, and 
where this science is taught mainly as a cultural subject. 

Teachers for general departments of agriculture in 
normal schools, general non-technical colleges, and 
agricultural high schools not organized on the depart- 
mental plan, should, in addition to the foregoing, 
pursue the introductory, fundamental courses in each 
of the departments usually found in the agricultural 
colleges, which should represent full time work for 
about one and one half years. 

Teachers preparing to teach in technical, agricul- 
tural high schools organized on the departmental 
plan, and in agricultural colleges, should pursue spe- 
cialized studies in those particular departments in 
which they expect to become teachers, an additional 
period representing an additional one half year and 
one full year, respectively. 

(b) Professional training. — The general professional 
training of all teachers of agriculture will be much 
the same and should consist of one half to one year's 
course in educational psychology, and at least one half 
year in general methods. The special training will be 
determined by the kind of school in which the teacher 
in training expects to serve. There should be at least 
one half year in special methods for all teachers: 
teaching elementary agriculture for teachers in the 
elementary school and teaching high school agriculture 



54 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

for the teachers in the secondary schools. From one 
fourth to one half of the time in these two courses 
should be spent in practice teaching in corresponding 
rural schools. 

If the student is to become a teacher in a normal 
school or in a department of some other higher insti- 
tution, where superintendents and supervisors are to 
be trained, there should be required at least a half 
year course in the ad?7tinistration of agricultural teach- 
ing in addition to the strictly pedagogical require- 
ments. 

(c) Contributory general training. — The training of 
teachers of agriculture may not properly be limited 
to the technical subjects. There are other subjects 
that contribute to the efficiency of agricultural teach- 
ing. In fact, it is essential that teachers of agricul- 
ture should have a grounding in general science, — 
especially in chemistry and physics, economic botany 
and zoology, while some knowledge of elementary 
geology (or physical geography) is helpful. Rural 
economics and rural sociology are especially mentioned 
in order that their importance in the training of teach- 
ers of agriculture may not be overlooked. Teachers 
for the high schools, the normal schools, and the col- 
leges of whatever type should pursue at least the 
general, or foundation, college course in each of these 
subjects. These non-technical but contributory sub- 
jects will represent about one full year's study. 

Summary of training. — The following summary of the 



AGENCIES FOR PREPARATION 55 

technical and the professional training of each of the 
various classes of teachers will be of interest: 

For Teachers of Agriculture in Rural and Village 
Elementary Schools 

Technical Training Hours 

The Elements of General Agriculture 8 

Professional Training 

Educational Psychology 3 

General Methods 3 

Teaching Elementary Agriculture — Special Method 2 

Practice Teaching 2 

Contributory General Training 

Rural Economics 2 

Rural Sociology 2 

Secondary courses in Physics and Chemistry, Economic 
Botany and Zoology (or Biology), Physical Geography 
(or Elementary Geology) . 

Total collegiate hours 22 

For Teachers of Agriculture in Rural and Village 

High Schools 

(Schools offering 1 or }4 unit) ^ 

Technical Training Hours 

The Elements of General Agriculture 8 

1 A "unit" is defined as "a course of study covering a school year, 
which shall include in the aggregate not less than one hundred and 
twenty sixty-minute hours of classroom work, two hours of manual 
training or laboratory work being equivalent to one hour of class- 
room work." 



56 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

Professional Training Hours 

Educational Psychology 3 

General Methods 3 

Teaching High School Agriculture — Special 

Method 2 

Practice Teaching 2 

Contributory General Training 

Rural Economics 2 

Rural Sociology 2 

General or foundation normal school or collegiate 
courses in Physics and Chemistry, Economic Bot- 
any and Zoology (or Biology), and Physical Geog- 
raphy (or Elementary Geology), totaling about. . . 40 
Total hours 62 

For Instructors of Agriculture in Normal Schools 

Technical Training 

The Elements of General Agriculture 8 

Elements of Horticulture 8 

Elementary Farm Crops 8 

Elements of Animal Husbandry and Dairying. . . 12 

General Farm Management 4 

Farm Machinery and Engineering 4 

Elementary Soils 8 

Professional Training 

Educational Psychology 3 

General Methods 3 

Teaching Elementary Agriculture — Theory 2 

Practice Teaching 2 



AGENCIES FOR PREPARATION 57 

Professional Training (continued) Hours 

Teaching High School Agriculture — Theory 2 

Practice Teaching 2 

Administration of Agricultural Teaching 2 

Contributory General Training 

Same as for High School Teachers 40 

Total hours 108 

For the General College and Agricultural High Schools 
not Organized into Departments 

In general, the training of the instructors in these 
two classes of schools should be the same as that of 
the professor of agricultural education in the normal 
school, except that the course in administration of agri- 
cultural teaching might well be eliminated. 

For Agricultural High Schools (Departmental) and 
Agricultural Colleges 

The prospective instructor in any given department 
of an agricultural high school organized on the de- 
partmental plan should receive about sixteen hours 
additional instruction in the technical subjects of his 
special field; while he who has in view teaching in a 
department of an agricultural college should have 
not less than 32 hours of such additional instruction. 
Measuring the training in hours, ^ we have, for each, 

1 An hour is defined as a sixty-minute period of classroom work a 
week, through a semester, either in lecture or recitation; two such 
periods of practical laboratory, or field work being regarded as the 
equivalent of one period of classroom exercise. 



58 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

124 hours and 140 hours, respectively. It will be 
noticed that no consideration has been given to courses 
in English, public speaking, the languages, mathe-' 
matics, history, etc. The training of teachers of agri- 
culture should not omit an acquaintance with any of 
these departments of culture, for such teachers should 
be as broadly educated as other members of the faculty. 
Adequate training in English and in public speaking 
is quite essential for those persons who are prepar- 
ing to do local extension work in agriculture. Since 
the special training set forth above, will require four 
years to complete, it will be seen that about one year's 
graduate study is necessary to equip the agricultural 
college man under present conditions. Indeed, it is 
probable that the best agricultural colleges will soon 
insist that the younger members of their faculties shall 
have a doctor's degree. 

(d) Administration. — The administrative factor of the 
college cannot be overlooked. Many of these courses 
are offered in the regular agricultural college curriculum, 
and should be pursued under the professors and in 
the departments offering them. No additional or- 
ganization will be needed. Where there is a school 
of education in the same institution, the strictly educa- 
tional work may be similarly disposed of. 

The program of studies above outlined is one which 
very few, if any, of our agricultural colleges offer 
in its entirety. Since this is true, there should be a 
distinct department to offer those subjects for the 



AGENCIES FOR PREPARATION 59 

training of teachers that may not well be included in 
departments already established. On the other hand, 
there is need for the unification and classification of 
the very diverse materials into workable systems, 
not for farm practice but for teaching purposes. Be- 
cause there is a difference of aims in the training of 
farmers and of teachers, there must be a difference 
in the courses for the attainment of these aims. The 
divergence of the courses to be traversed by these 
two classes will be in ratio to the divergency of the 
ends in view. The curriculum for the agricultural 
teacher is a sort of shunt from the main line after 
having traveled with it during a large part of its course, 
and after separation, still runs paralled with it. 

It all means exactly this: that there is a difference be- 
tween farmer training and teacher training; that to se- 
cure the greatest efficiency in the teaching of agriculture, 
this difference must be recognized and provided for; 
that there must be departments in our agricultural 
colleges, in charge of specialists of agricultural teach- 
ing; that these departments should avail themselves 
of all courses possible for them to use in the training 
of the various grades of agricultural teachers and 
supervisors of agricultural teaching; that they should 
institute and offer new or special courses needed. 
This implies a distinct program of studies, but not 
wholly a new set of courses. To administer such spe- 
cial training there will be need of a distinct depart- 
ment with a faculty of one or more persons, depending 



6o AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

upon the extent and degree of efficiency to which the 
work of teacher training is carried, and the encourage- 
ment that this new department of agricultural edu- 
cation, or agricultural teaching, receives. 

Review of Chapter VI 

Name the four agencies first considered in this chapter. 
What is said of home study? How may teachers' in- 
stitutes assist in the preparation of teachers to teach 
agriculture? Show how superintendents and supervisors 
may give assistance. To what extent are summer ses- 
sions recommended? What courses are recommended for 
teachers in summer sessions and why? 
What do you remember concerning — 

The Nelson Amendment — its origin and purpose? The 
first Nelson teachers' extension school? The first step 
to be taken in the organization of a teachers' extension 
school? The complete organization of a teachers' exten- 
sion school? The advantage of dividing the members of 
the school into two classes? The necessary equipment for 
conducting a teachers' extension school? The days and the 
frequency of the sessions of the school? The aim of the 
instruction given? The possibilities of teachers' exten- 
sion schools? The scheme for inaugurating a state-wide 
system of teachers' extension schools? 
What can you say in support of — 

Thorough professional training for teachers of agri- 
culture? The technical training proposed for each of the 
following classes of teachers: elementary school; general, 
non-technical high school; normal school, and general non- 
technical college; agricultural high school, and agricultural 



AGENCIES FOR PREPARATION 6 1 

college? The professional training proposed for the vari- 
ous classes of teachers named? A "contributory general 
training"? To what extent should this be carried? The 
training suggested for professors in agricultural colleges? 
The administrative problems involved in the method of 
training teachers in the higher institutions? Separate de- 
partments of agricultural education in normal schools and 
agricultural colleges? 



CHAPTER VII 

ELEMENTARY AGRICULTURE AND NATURE 

STUDY 

I. Introduction 

Nature study preceded elementary agriculture as 
a subject of study in the public elementary schools. 
The enthusiasm for nature study reached its height 
during the last decade of the nineteenth century and 
the first decade of the twentieth. It was during this 
score of years that the best books on nature study 
were written, that the various organizations to pro- 
mote and unify the subject were born, and that the 
official organ of the American Nature Study Society, 
the Natiirc-Stiidy Revieiv, was founded. During this 
period, too, various principles and methods for the 
study and teaching of nature study were enthusias- 
tically promulgated. Consequently writings on this 
subject have been numerous, and persons interested 
in this phase of educational endeavor have found it 
comparatively easy to supply themselves with good 
reading matter on nature-study subjects. 

To the impartial observer, however, there is unmis- 
takable evidence that the enthusiasm which has in 

62 



NATURE STUDY 63 

past years characterized the nature-study movement 
is on the wane/ We no longer find the same abun- 
dance of fresh literature on the subject; perhaps the 
field has been thoroughly covered. Nature study is 
not so prominently a part of educational discussions 
now as it was only a few years ago; perhaps teachers 
have learned to teach the subject more efficiently, 
and the passing of the novelty and the stage of ex- 
ploitation has gradually allowed it to sink to the 
commonplace — to a level with the older subjects of 
the elementary school. No new philosophy of nature 
study has been proposed or expounded recently; per- 
haps the right one has been discovered, or every in- 
dividual finds that one corresponding to his own views 
has already been formulated which satisfies his needs. 
However these things may be, one must admit that 
the nature-study idea does not to-day command the 
prestige and attention in the educational world that 
it promised only a few years ago. 

Yet, nature study has won a permanent place in 
the elementary school. It has a very necessary func- 
tion in the modem education of the child. It is a 
generic study, and although it is not a science, no 
science can ever take its place. As long as it is a use- 
ful study, and an efficient method in the process of 
educating the child, and as long as the child's nature 
remains the same as it now is, nature study will be 

^Education (Boston), Vol. 29, p. 291. Elementary School Teacher 
(Chicago), Vol. II, p. 452. 



64 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

used in the schools to secure the desired adjustment 
of the child to his environment. 

Elementary agriculture began to be taught in the pub- 
lic elementary schools during the first decade of the 
present century. In fact, the first elementary agri- 
culture taught in the schools was under the cloak of 
nature study. Since nature study incorporates in its 
possible sphere all natural objects and phenomena, 
domestic animals and plants as well as soil and other 
objects of the farm and agricultural phenomena are 
recognized as legitimate and desirable objects of 
study. The advocates of the so-called practical ed- 
ucation were quick to see this vantage point, and 
those who were in position to lead, insistently urged 
the use of farm materials and agricultural phenomena.^ 
A large amount of literature in harmony with this idea 
began to be supplied to teachers. About the same 
time, the philosophy of the economic aim in nature 
study came to be the dominant guide in the selection of 
materials for study. ^ It thus came about that the sub- 
jects of nature study were, in large measure, selected 
from among the objects and phenomena with which 
agriculture deals, instead of from the undomesticated 
plants and animals and uneconomic things, as at first. 

1 The achievements of Dean L. H. Bailey in this respect are espe- 
cially noteworthy. See The Rural Educator (Columbus, Ohio), 
Vol. I, p. 6s. 

^ See especially, pp. i and 2 in Nature Study and Life by Clifton F. 
Hodge, Ginn and Company, Boston, 1902. 




KINDERGARTXERS AT WORK 







^ 


hM 


iH^ 


V 




j 


■s 


\ 1 



A DEMONSTRATION FIELD ONE MONTH AFTER PLANTING 



NATURE STUDY 65 

This remarkable line of development of nature 
study gave rise to many confusing notions in regard 
to elementary agriculture and nature study. It was, 
for a time, difficult to differentiate them. Indeed, 
there were those who even went so far as to assert that 
in essence nature study and elementary agriculture 
are one and the same thing, that a difference in name 
does not necessarily imply a difference in content and 
method, and that the aims of one are practically the 
same as the aims of the other. But it was easily 
pointed out that nature study includes many tilings 
not related to agriculture or at best very remotely 
so. To designate that nature study which is based on 
agricultural things, the term agricultural nature study 
came into use, and this may be regarded as the first 
step in the effort to differentiate elementary agricul- 
ture from the general subject of nature study. How- 
ever, in different sections of the country elementary 
agriculture continues to be taught as nature study, 
while elsewhere nature study is taught under the 
name of elementary agriculture.^ 

It will thus be seen that any discussion of elemen- 
tary agriculture is closely wrapped up with a dis- 
cussion of nature study also. The differentiation of 
these fields of learning is not clearly defined in the 
popular mind even to-day, and many teachers need 
assistance in making a clearer definition of the sub- 

* Cf. Coulter and Patterson's Practical Nature Study, pp. 1-2. 
D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1909. 

AGRIC. EDUC. — 5 



66 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

jects. To make the differentiation adequate is the 
object of this and the following chapter. 

II. What is Nature Study? 

Nature study is not a fashionable pastime for both 
pupils and teacher. A clear definition of nature study 
and an adequate statement of its purpose have been 
long in coming, and perhaps have not yet arrived. 
There is a great deal of talk about nature study by 
persons who have only the haziest idea of what they 
mean by it. We find statements of its purpose ranging 
all the way from the cultivation of a sentimental love 
for nature to training in habits of exact observation 
and inference. This last purpose has been carried 
to such an extent that many educators designate the 
study by the term elementary science. But nature 
study is not a science in the sense that there is any 
given body of systematically arranged facts, principles, 
and laws to be learned; yet it is more than a mere 
sentiment — a love of nature. Nature study finds its 
place between these extreme views. ^ 

There are two points of view from which nature study 
is considered by various writers and philosophers. 
Some consider the child and the purpose of teaching 
him (philosophers); others consider the materials used 
in the teaching process (scientists). No adequate 

1 Science, Vol. 30, p. 525. Coulter and Patterson: Practical Nature 
Study, pp. 16-17. Scott, Charles B.: Nature Study and the Child, 
1902, Chap. III. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston. 



NATURE STUDY 67 

or intelligent notion of nature study can be secured 
without making this distinction.^ 

III. Nature Study as a Purpose 

Considered as a purpose, nature study is a mis- 
nomer, and does not mean, primarily, a subject of study, 
but a philosophy in education, a point of view, an 
attitude, a purpose. It is spirit, not subject matter. 
Things are taught for the sake of the child rather than 
to promulgate knowledge. From this point of view, 
things and phenomena are studied merely incidentally 
as means to ends. The intention is to broaden the 
horizon, the outlook, the experience of the child. 
Pencil and paper will not be needed; only the senses 
and the mind processes. Facts, truths, feelings, ideals, 
and convictions will be registered on the tablets of 
the heart. 2 

"Consider the end," says the philosopher in refer- 
ence to the purpose for which the child is brought into 
contact with nature materials or phenomena. Thus, 
various aims have been enunciated as desirable goals 
to be realized through child development by the teach- 
ing of nature study. Various philosophies of the pres- 
ent and the past have caused constant shifting in the 
point of view and consequently in the aims of nature 

^ In this connection, the reader is referred to an interesting article 
written by C. F. Hodge in The Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. 7, pp. 208- 
228, entitled Foundations of Nature Study, wherein he discusses 
various methods in teaching nature study. 

2 Bailey, L. H.: The Nature-Study Idea, 1909, pp. 6, 13-14, 30. 



68 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

study. Among the most prominent, the following 
aims may be named: the religious, the ethical, the 
mental-discipline, the sentimental, the aesthetic, the 
cultural, the knowledge, the utility, and the scientific- 
method. 

The religious aim ^ was perhaps the first one to 
be accepted — historically considered — as the true pur- 
pose to be realized in child development through na- 
ture study. Doubtless this purpose comes to us from 
Puritan times, when the study and teaching of tem- 
poral things were permitted only on the plea that 
they contributed to the religious instincts of the child. 
All other aims were considered subordinate to this one. 
The study of nature was considered to have missed 
its highest purpose unless it led the child from nature 
to the Author of nature. Unless the seen pointed the 
child to the Unseen, from care and protection to a 
Protector, from function and action to a Prime Mover, 
from purpose and plan to a Planner, — nature did 
not reveal its greatest thought or grandest lesson of 
omniscient law and eternal unity. So through na- 
ture study, God revealed his wonderful works to the 
children of men. The high regard in which astronomy 
was once held in popular education doubtless owed 

^Scott's Nature Study and the Child, pp. 37, 116, 118. Hodge, 
Clifton F.: Nature Study and Life, p. 30. Foght, Harold Waldstein: 
The Rural School of the Twentieth Century, p. 160. McMurray, Chas. 
A. : Special Method in Elementary Science, p. 8. Ira Benton Meyers in 
The Elementary School Teacher, Vol. XI, p. 209. 



NATURE STUDY 69 

its popularity to this notion. It is, without doubt, 
true that the fundamental sentiments on which the 
highest religion rests are best developed in children 
by the use of the noblest objects in nature. 

The ethical aim ^ is closely associated with the re- 
ligious aim and doubtless followed it historically. 
The admiration of the wonders of creation that resulted 
in love and obedience to the Creator was maintained 
to have a desirable reaction upon the conduct of the 
child in his relations with his fellows. The humani- 
tarian element would be awakened, especially through 
experience with animal life. Sympathy and affection 
for pets would induce the child to be kind and gentle 
in his attitude toward animal life generally, and any 
disposition to kill or injure would be overcome. 

The mental-discipline aim - came next and held sw^ay 
during the time when the formal-discipline theory 
held a dominant place in the educational world. Since 
the sciences, as botany, chemistry, and physics, were 
regarded as having high "disciplinary value," of 
course, nature study, or elementary science, which 

^ See Ira Benton Meyers in The Elementary School Teacher, Vol. VI, 
p. 260. Hodge's Nature Study and Life, pp. 28-30. Schmucker, 
Samuel Christian: The Study of Nature, pp. 41-44. J. B. Lippincott 
Co., Philadelphia, 1908. Holtz, Frederick L.: Nature Study, 1908, 
pp. 18-20, also Chap. III. Jackman, Wilbur S.: Nature Study, 1894, 
p. 4. Henry Holt and Company, New York. 

2 Meyers, I. B., in The Elementary School Teacher, XI, p. 212. New- 
man, Ibid., p. 193. Holtz, Frederick: Nature Study, 1908, pp. 12-13. 
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 



70 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

dealt with the same materials as these sciences, was 
also considered to have a high disciplinary value. 

The sentimental aim ^ is reached when the child, 
through the study of nature materials, comes into 
possession of a nature-sympathy, a love, a prejudice 
in favor of his natural environments. This S3anpa- 
thetic attitude toward nature enhances the joy of 
living. 

The aesthetic aim ^ leads children to see and feel 
the beautiful in nature to the end that Kfe may be- 
come more joyful. "The psychological genesis of a 
genuine love of nature is the crowning result of nature 
study," says one author. 

The cultural aim results from the fact that the 
objects constituting the materials of nature study 
may be widely chosen — from any natural environ- 
ment — and the natural environment is quite universal. 
To a great degree, common knowledge and experience 
and reactions come into the possession of a vast major- 
ity of the members of the race. This common knowl- 
edge of nature that all men should possess stands for 
a given kind of culture, which nature study enhances. 

The observational aim.^ — The cultivation of the 
habit of observing closely and accurately is held by 

1 Bailey, L. H.: The Natiire-Stiidy Idea, 1909, pp. 5, 28. 

2 Holtz's Nature Study, pp. 14-16, Chapter III. 

^ See Hugo Newman in The Elementary School Teacher, Vol. 6, 
p. 192. Mrs. L. L. Wilson: Nature Study in Elementary Schools, 
p. 4 (adverse). Holtz's Nature Study, pp. 8-9. Chas. A. McMurray's 
Special Method in Elementary Science, p. 7. 



NATURE STUDY 7 I 

many to be the chief aim of nature study. Others 
hold that the acquiring of knowledge about one's 
natural surroundings constitutes its chief aim and 
may be designated as the knowledge aim. Still others 
qualify the knowledge aim and insist that it must 
possess a utilitarian value, that, when exercised by 
the possessor, it may yield economic results; and this 
may be designated as the economic aim. Finally, we 
have the scientific-method aim in which the study 
of Nature in her innumerable forms and manifesta- 
tions develops in the child the inquiring spirit for 
fact and truth. When these are discovered, they 
should be methodically classified into systems. ^ 

The four aims mentioned and explained in the fore- 
going paragraph are not usually accepted by the philo- 
sophic school, who insist that these are only means 
to higher ends — as being only rungs in the golden lad- 
der by which the spirit-heaven of nature is reached, 
i. e., the attainment of one or more of the various aims 
above considered. ^ While these various aims doubt- 
less contribute to the development of desirable quali- 
ties in the child, they may be regarded merely as means 

1 Holtz's Nature Study, p. 6. Hodge's Nature Study and Life, 
pp. 2-18. McMurray's Special Method in Elementary Science, pp. 8- 
18. 

^ Mrs. L. L. Wilson: Nature Study in Elementary Schools, p. 4. 
Bailey's The Nature-Study Idea, pp. 31-32. McMurray's Special 
Method in Elementary Science, p. 18. A good statement of aims in 
nature study will be found in Scott's Nature Study and the Child, 
Chap. IV. 



72 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

to other ends. They seem to regard the materials of 
study rather than the child: the child is developed, 
not for his own inherent sake, but that he may become 
more capable of making investigations in the higher 
forms of science. 

IV. Nature Study as Science 

Those who place emphasis upon the methodical 
arrangement of the materials of study in nature study 
are apt to consider the whole subject as elementary 
science. In some cases these persons have succeeded 
in building up what they consider a methodical ar- 
rangement of subjects pertaining to nature to be sys- 
tematically pursued through the various grades of the 
elementary school.^ 

It should be noticed that this school of nature-study 
people does not regard the subject as a science, but as 
elementary science. The term is used in a general 
sense. It considers the commonest, most evident 
facts and principles of the natural world, no matter 
where they are manifested, or in what particular field 
of science they may be classified. The study of nature 
coincides in part with all the sciences, but with none 
of them wholly. 

The following diagram represents the field of nature 
study in its relations to the various sciences: 

1 See Otis W. Caldwell in Natural History in the Grades, The 
Elementary School Teacher, Vol. lo, p. 131 (adverse). 



NATURE STUDY 



73 



THE TTELD OF SCIENTIFIC lOTOWLEDGK 




The materials for study may be drawn from the fields 
of any or all the natural sciences. Its field is the 
whole physical environment — the whole world of na- 
ture. ^ It partakes of the beginnings of many sciences. 
Thus nature study may include materials and phe- 
nomena that are agricultural, or that are classed in 
any of the other great natural sciences, as botany, 
zoology, astronomy, chemistry, physics, geology, etc. 
Nature study because of its relations to them may 
be made a valuable course in the first steps of many 
of the physical sciences. It is from this relationship 
that we doubtless get the term elementary science as a 
synonym of nature study. 

"The relations of nature study to elementary agri- 
culture is a study of nature's material in its natural 
setting. It is a many-sided subject, involving various 
phases of education among which agriculture deserves 
prominence. Strictly speaking, nature study is not 

ijackman's Nature Study, pp. 8-9, 29-438. Comstock, Anna 
Botsford: Handbook of Nature Study, pp. 938, 191 1- Comstock 
Publishing Company, Ithaca, N. Y. 



74 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

agriculture, but this does not prevent it from being of 
great value for agricultural purposes. Teachers who 
confine the work largely to agricultural material in- 
corporate an economic factor which results in the 
work becoming a forerunner to and a part of agricul- 
ture." 1 

Review of Chapter VII 

Concerning elementary agriculture and nature study — 

Which was first taught in the public schools? What is 
the present status of each as a school subject? Show how 
elementary agriculture came to be taught as nature study. 
What is meant by "agricultural nature study"? What is 
nature study? Explain nature study as a purpose. Name 
and discuss the leading aims of nature study. Explain 
nature study as a science. Locate the zone of each in the 
field of knowledge. Explain the relations of nature study 
and elementary agriculture. 

^ S. A. Minear in Nature Study, Aug., 191 2. Oklahoma A. & M. 
College, Stillwater. 



CHAPTER VIII 
WHAT IS ELEMENTARY AGRICULTURE? 

An analogy ^ may assist in the better understanding 
of elementary agriculture, its field, its purpose, and 
its contents. In mathematics, we teach numbers 
to the beginner in the first grades of the elementary 
school. Later on, when the child has learned to count, 
to identify the symbols of numbers and their names, 
we gradually introduce him to the processes of ad- 
dition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Here 
we are teaching the fundamentals of a great science — 
mathematics. When these fundamentals of arithmetic 
have been mastered, the child is taught their wider 
apphcations in the grammar school. 

The number stage in arithmetic represents the nature- 
study period in agriculture, and we may designate 
this work in the lower grades of the elementary school 
by the term agricultural nature study. Later on, the 
simple, elemental objects, facts, principles, and proc- 
esses of agriculture are studied. We may call this 
elementary agriculture. In the high school the study 
of agriculture as a science, an art, and a business is 

^ See Dr. A. C. True in Addresses and Proceedings of the National 
Education Association Jor igo8, p. 1204. 

75 



76 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

undertaken in a more comprehensive and serious way, 
and this is designated as secondary agriculture. 

The simple number work in the primary grades 
may not properly be called arithmetic; neither may 
the nature-study work with agricultural objects of 
the lower grades of the elementary school be prop- 
erly regarded as elementary agriculture; it is rightly 
called agricultural nature study. As number work 
forms an indispensable basis for later work in ele- 
mentary arithmetic, so agricultural nature study 
performs a similar duty to elementary agriculture. 
Number work should be differentiated from the tech- 
nical science of arithmetic, and the same may be said 
of nature study in reference to agriculture. 

The materials for study in elementary agriculture 
are the common, everyday things with which the 
children living on farms and in villages are ac- 
quainted. Some of these tilings are: the proper 
time for planting and harvesting crops; the appear- 
ance of various seeds, fruits, plants, and animals in 
their various stages of development; the different 
kinds of soil ; the use of manure ; the uses and the struc- 
ture of the common agricultural implements, etc.^ 

More than a sympathetic acquaintance with these 
things will be developed in the elementary study of 
agriculture, because the child is now undertaking 
the study of a science. Not only should the names, 

* See the author's The Teaching of Agriculture in the High School, 
pp. 2-5. 



ELEMENTARY AGRICULTURE 77 

uses, striking characteristics, morphology, and habits 
of the physical and the biological objects of the farm 
and their economic importance to man be observed, 
but a system of elementary facts, principles, and laws 
should be built up in the mind of the child. The 
spirit of inquiry for reasons should be encouraged, 
and, from the results of investigations for the "why," 
elemental deductions should be made, and these im- 
pressed upon the student as being fundamental to 
agriculture. 

The how as well as the why should receive considera- 
tion in elementary agriculture, for agriculture is an 
art as well as a science. Here belong the school gar- 
den and the simple home projects. The processes and 
methods of farm and garden work and its management 
must be taught by insisting upon the actual perform- 
ance by the pupils themselves. The theory is learned by 
study, by explanation, and by demonstration; but 
the practice may be learned only by actual doing. 
The method is no longer observational as in nature 
study, but industrial. Ability to execute and the 
formation of habits are realized in the individual pupils 
by their performing physical acts; and when these are 
done in obedience to instruction, better understanding 
of the principles involved will invariably result. 

But agriculture is not only a science and an art; 
it is also a business, and therefore economic. Of this 
phase elementary agriculture must also take cogni- 
zance. Industry and knowledge applied together on 



78 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

the farm must result economically. To this end, 
pupils in the elementary school should be given home 
projects, the success of which should be measured 
in terms of profit. 

The method of teaching nature study is observational; 
that of elementary agriculture is industrial and scien- 
tific. Agriculture is predominantly a utilitarian sub- 
ject, and utility should be emphasized in the methods 
employed in teaching it. The aim of teaching nature 
study is to afford an acquaintance with, and an in- 
terest in, the common things of nature; but elemen- 
tary agriculture adds to this an economic aim as its 
predominating purpose. Nature study differentiates 
from technical science; but elementary agriculture 
consciously and definitely teaches the beginnings of a 
science. Nature study should be taught for the child; 
but elementary agriculture should be taught for the 
adult into which the child will eventually develop.^ 
As Dean Davenport puts it: "Agriculture, even in the 
grades, is something more than ordinary nature study. 
It is nature study plus utility. It is nature study with 
an economic significance. It is nature study which 
articulates with the affairs of real men in real life. 
It is nature study in which the child may influence 
the process. It is nature study which distinctly stim- 
ulates industry." ^ 

1 See A. W. Nolan in The Rural Educator, Vol. Ill, p. 8. 

2 Davenport, E.: Education for Efficiency, p. 139. Heath, Boston, 
1909. Chapter VIII. 



ELEMENTARY AGRICULTURE 79 

Elementary" agriculture is not a catchall for all 
sorts of subjects. The tendency in some quarters 
for administrators, supervisors, and teachers to in- 
clude under "elementary agriculture" all sorts of sub- 
jects foreign to the study, as domestic science, morals 
and manners, physiology, etc., cannot be too severely 
condemned. 

Agriculture is the science, art, and business of pro- 
ducing the largest quantity and best quahty of raw- 
materials for food, clothing, shelter, and the aesthetic 
enjoyment of man, from the smallest area of land 
through the least expenditure of money, effort, and 
deterioration of the soil. Elementary agriculture 
strives, in a small way, to realize this ideal with be- 
ginners. Their faces should be set in this direction, 
which is a goal to be attained after many years of study 
and practice. Elementary agriculture is the study and 
practice of some of the simpler elementary scientific 
principles of agriculture. 

Review of Chapter VIII 

Give the author's view on — 

The analogy existing between school agriculture and 
arithmetic. The materials for study in elementary agricul- 
ture. Emphasizing the how and the why. The threefold 
nature of agriculture. The differentiation of methods 
in teaching elementary agriculture and nature study. 
The things to be included and taught under the term, 
"elementary agriculture." The definition of agriculture. 



CHAPTER rX 
AGRICULTURE AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION 

That the subject of agriculture, properly taught, 
is an efficient means to employ in the formal educa- 
tion of the youth is now coming to be generally recog- 
nized. It has long been suspected, and in recent years 
it has been urged by prominent educators, that agri- 
cultural materials may be employed in the education 
of school children quite as advantageously as those 
of any other subject. The inadequacy of agriculture 
as a science can no longer be urged against its being 
taught in the pubhc schools. If it is still maintained 
that the constituents of physical and biological sciences 
may be used to contribute valuable elements toward 
the education of our children, then agriculture, which 
is both physical and biological, offers a double reason 
for seeking and maintaining a place in the program 
of studies. 

Agriculture as a desirable subject for public school 
instruction offers a double sanction from another 
point of view: it may be both vocational and cultural. 
A double purpose may be served: through education 
in agriculture a utilitarian purpose may be reached 
in the production of a scientific farmer; on the other 
hand the impartation of ideas and ideals of beauty, 

80 



AGRICULTURE AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION 8 1 

of sympathy, of ethics, and of service by means of 
this subject may result in an individual possessing 
a high type of culture. There is no good reason why 
the vocational and the cultural aims may not both be 
realized in the same individual. It is not the function 
of education in agriculture to produce more hogs 
and corn per acre at a greater profit with the least 
expenditure of energy and the minimum diminution 
of soil fertility only; but to educate men and women 
to live more efficiently both as individuals and as social 
units. Taught as a strictly vocational subject, agri- 
culture contributes to the economic efficiency of the 
individual, while taught as a liberal subject, it min- 
isters to his social efficiency.^ 

The educational value of agriculture as a fit subject 
for purposes of formal school instruction ought to be 
determined by the same pedagogical standards that are 
applied to those subjects now generally used in such 
instruction. The subjects that are now sanctioned 
by most educators are such as directly contribute 
to the realization of the accepted aim or aims of 
education, or as may be indirectly used as a means 
to these aims. In order to show the relationship 
that the subject of agriculture may bear to the final 
results of the educative process, it is merely necessary 

^ See W. H. Jordan in " The Function and Efficiency of the Agricul- 
tural College," Science, Vol. XXXIV, p. 785; and especially D. J. 
Crosby in the Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the N. E. A. 
for 1910, p. 1105. 

AGRIC. EDUC. — 6 



82 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

to show how the subject may be made to contribute 
to the various aims or ends of education. If agricul- 
ture may be made a potent factor in the process of 
reaUzing the aims or ends of education, either directly 
or indirectly, then there can be no legitunate reason 
why it should not be used in the formal instruction 
of the children in our schools. 

The aims of education are various, according to the 
point of view of many philosophers and educators. 
A catalogue of all the aims of education that have 
been advanced by philosophers and educators with the 
briefest consideration of each would be not only out 
of place here, but wholly unnecessary. For our purpose, 
only a few of the most important as advocated to-day 
by philosophers, educators, and the popular mind, 
will be considered. The most important of these are: 
the aims of earning a livelihood, of gaining knowledge, 
of developing the mind, of complete and harmonious 
development, of refinement, of culture, of ethical train- 
ing, of individual adjustment, and of social service.^ 

(a) The livelihood aim. — The aim of earning a liv- 
ing, sometimes designated "the bread-and-butter aim," 
appeals with especial force to the poor, to those people 

' For a discussion of these various aims of education sec the fol- 
lowing references: Bagley, W. C: The Educative Process, Chapter III. 
O'Shea, M. V.: Education as Adjustment, pp. 57-98. Raymont, 
T. : The Meaning of Education, Chapter I. Thorndike, Edward L.: 
Education, Chapters II and III. Henderson, Ernest Norton: A 
Textbook in the Principles of Education, Chapter I. Ruediger, 
William Carl: The Principles of Education, Chapters III, IV, and V. 



AGRICULTURE AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION 8$ 

who are possessed with only a moderate amount 
of wealth, to the practical man of affairs, and to 
the rank and file of the common people. With these 
classes, the economic problem of existence is a very 
important one. Their greatest wealth is in the per- 
sonal power of the individual — power or ability to 
earn a living. The schooling of their children, they 
say, should fit them to get on in the world. 

To the people who hold this aim as the end of edu- 
cation, the subject of agriculture as a means to this 
end should be especially attractive. AppHed agricul- 
ture is essentially productive. Granted the necessary 
soil, the young man provided with a training in the 
science and practice of agriculture is able to earn a 
living by the most fundamental occupation. The 
farmer is best able to provide for himself the primitive 
necessities of food, clothing, and shelter. 

(b) The knowledge aim. — The aim of acquiring 
knowledge as an end in itself has been called the school- 
master's aim. "Kjiowledge is power," and those 
who, by habit and occupation, are engaged in gaining 
knowledge and in teaching others are apt to regard 
its acquisition as an end in itself without regard to 
the deeper and more significant meaning of their motto. 

What a wealth of knowledge — facts, principles, 
laws, practice — agriculture offers for the realization 
of this aim! A lifetime of reading, study, observation, 
and experimentation will not encompass all there is 
to be known in this science and art. 



84 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

(c) The mind-development aim. — The most strik- 
ing difference between the educated and the unedu- 
cated individual is the superior ability of the former 
to think and understand. The popular mind has 
always recognized this. Hence, the "development 
of the mind" has come to be accepted as an end of 
education. The acquisition of knowledge, power of 
expression, and interpreting skill are concomitant 
and fundamental to this aim. 

Much in the same way that agriculture may serve 
the knowledge aim, might it also serve the mind- 
development aim. As long as the almost inexhaustible 
subject of agriculture presents new things to be learned, 
the individual may continue to whet and expand his 
intellect. 

^ (d) Complete and harmonious development. — This aim 
of education goes further than the one immediately 
above, because it insists upon the complete and sym- 
metrical development of all the powers of man, physi- 
cal, mental, and moral. This is the aim of education 
as set forth by Plato. It seeks to "give to the body 
and the soul all the beauty and all the perfection of 
which they are capable." Thus only may a human 
being be prepared for complete living. 

If this be held as the true aim and end of education, 
then most certainly should the youth be taught agri- 
culture; otherwise, he will be unsymmetrically and 
incompletely developed. On the other hand, since 
agriculture is so varied that it touches almost all 



AGRICULTURE AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION 85 

phases of life, and since it is so great that it is quite 
inexhaustible in educative materials and possibilities 
of experience, no other subject offers greater oppor- 
tunities for the complete and harmonious development 
of man's mind, might, and morals. 

(e) The refinement aim. — Refinement as the end 
of education is perhaps best t3rpified by our ideal of 
the English gentleman, who is supposed to be gentle, 
courteous, sympathetic, considerate, and handsome; 
possessing refijiement of thought and feeling, gracious- 
ness of speech and manner; in short, exhibiting all those 
qualities that make his intercourse with others most 
agreeable. 

What has agriculture to contribute to this aim? 
For a certain genuine hospitality, considerate and 
knightly conduct, sympathetic and gentle treatment, 
people of the best rural breeding have always been 
famous. Communion with Nature as she manifests 
herself through plant and animal life; the considera- 
tion of her phenomenal expressions through her inert 
physical garments of soil, water, air, heat, and light; 
the knowledge of her simple mysteries and her astound- 
ing resourcefulness, — all these things tend to build 
up those ideals so necessary for the person of refine- 
ment. The study of agriculture as a mode of life and 
the consideration of rural social institutions, which are 
primarily based upon the agricultural industry, add 
the human element of the highest type, designed es- 
pecially for the realization of rural refinement. 



86 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

(f) The cultural aim. — During the progress of the 
centuries, the schools have gradually assembled cer- 
tain fixed items of knowledge and conventional ex- 
periences of the race, the acquisition of which is called 
culture. They are the things that every educated 
person should know. In fact, an educated person as 
judged by this aim should know something about 
all those things that are generally accepted as the 
common knowledge and experience of the race. 

A large portion of this common knowledge and ex- 
perience is contributed by the science and practice 
of agriculture. Therefore, no one can be considered 
educated who is ignorant of the elementary principles 
concerned in the economic production of the common 
things of the farm. The city youth w^ho went to visit 
his country uncle, and in an attempt to demonstrate 
his interest in his relative's affairs, remarked, when 
the honey was passed to him at dinner, "I see you 
keep a bee," cannot be said to have been educated. 
The question alone arises as to how much of agricul- 
ture the average educated individual should be ex- 
pected to know. 

"Agriculture is one of the most liberal studies for 
doctors, lawyers, merchants, teachers, and ministers. 
Probably no other subject appeals to so many persons. 
The interest in agriculture includes nearly all the 
population. A very large part of our city population, 
particularly the larger cities, is coming to take the 
keenest interest in agricultural questions. * * * The 



AGRICULTURE AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION 87 

movement for the ownership and management of 
farms by city men is remarkable. Nearly every one 
is interested in growing plants and animals, and there 
are some fundamental principles of this growth that 
every boy and girl should have an opportunity to 
learn, if they so desire; not that they may become 
farmers or farmers' wives, but for the educational 
training and intellectual interest in life that this knowl- 
edge brings. This training is often as desirable for 
those who are to live in cities as for those who are to 
live on farms. We can never wholly separate our 
interests from the soil on which we walk, and the 
plants and animals on which our life depends." ^ 

It has been said that an educated person is one who 
knows much about one department of human experi- 
ence and something about many others. There is 
perhaps no other subject through which this ideal may 
be so well realized as the subject of agriculture, since 
it touches so many phases of human life and involves 
so many other sciences. 

(g) The ethical-training aim.- — Aristotle saw the need 
for the practical virtue of the citizen in his daily life. 
To secure this end it was assumed that education could 
mold the character of the young citizen so that the 

^George F. Warren in The Place of Agriculture in the Public High 
Schools, Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the N. E. A., 1910, 
p. 1098. 

^Herbart, John Frederick (Translated by Alexis F. Lange and 
annotated by Charles De Garmo) : Outlines of Educational Doctrine, 
1909; p. 7 et seq. The Macmillan Company, New York. 



88 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION lOR TEACHERS 

practice of virtue between man and man should be 
assured. This view was also emphasized by the great 
educator, Herbart. 

Agriculture as a mode of life, in which individuals 
constantly come into social contact, has abundant 
material serviceable for ethical instruction. Agricul- 
ture is also a business, and no field of human endeavor 
presents so great variety of opportunities for ethical 
training, nor is there any in which this training is more 
needed. Closely related to this aim is the reUgious 
basis of moral character. In the contemplation of 
life, and in studying its forms and the conditions of 
better growth and development, the youth secures a 
truer and clearer conception of his relation to his and 
Nature's God. Life in all its forms comes to have a 
fuller and more serious meaning, and life in its special 
form of human existence comes to have a loftier and 
more sacred significance, wliich ought to influence for 
good the relations of the individual with his fellows. ^ 

(h) The individual-adjustment aim.- — From birth till 
death, man and his world need to be in constant, 
harmonious adjustment to each other. An individ- 
ual's well-being is at all times conditioned by the 
forces operating in his environment, and education 
must prepare him to put himself into sympathetic 
relations with these, and to turn them to profit- 

' See The Teaching of Agrictdture in the High School, p. i8i. 
2 0'Shea, M. V.: Education as Adjustment, 1903, pp. 317. Long- 
mans, Green, and Company, New York. 



AGRICULTURE AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION 89 

able account.' The man is best educated, therefore, 
who can best secure this harmonious adjustment to 
his own greatest comfort and happiness. The in- 
dividual is the acting agent in securing this adjust- 
ment, for life implies the power and necessity of 
adaptation. The child comes into the world with no 
knowledge of the conditions for securing harmoni- 
ous adjustments with his environment, and his educa- 
tion immediately begins and continues throughout the 
remainder of his life. During his youth, society through 
the school is supposed to give him systematic instruc- 
tion concerning his life problem. 

It is doubtful if any man can go through life without 
coming into contact with agricultural materials and 
conditions to which he must make adjustments; and 
in the country, men find the necessity for these ad- 
justments persistent and continuous. The study of 
agriculture will assist the youth to make the necessary 
adjustments to Nature and her laws that he may be- 
come a better farmer. Considering the matter socially, 
a knowledge of agriculture will give the individual 
mastery of one of the chief avenues of social inter- 
course, since agriculture fills a large sphere in the life 
interest of our people. 

(i) The social-service aim. — Social efficiency has 
been proposed as the ultimate aim of education. The 
minimum requirement of a socially efiicient individual 
is that he must be self-sustaining, not merely eco- 
nomically, but socially. Besides this, he must not 



90 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

block nor in any way hinder the true and legiti- 
mate progress of another, but it is desirable that 
he contribute a positive force in the evolution of so- 
ciety, and do his share in improving and satisfying 
human wants. ^ 

Industrial efficiency is, of course, included in the 
aim now under discussion. Nearly one half of the 
people of our nation are engaged in the production 
of the raw materials of food, clothing, and shelter, 
and to be efficient to a maximum degree these should 
have a more or less thorough education in agriculture. 
The same statement also applies when agriculture is 
considered as a business, and as a mode of living. 

There are many ways in which the individual may 
render positive social service, and through the medium 
of agriculture he may render service other than eco- 
nomic. The farmer who, in cooperation with the 
Creator, the sunshine, the rain, the air, and the soil, 
produces luscious, juicy, mellow fruit, tempting to 
the senses of taste, smell, and sight, or who produces 
flowers more delicate and beautiful than those which 
any painter ever reproduced, or who rears animals 
of perfect form and surpassing beauty, is an artist of 
at least equal merit with him who paints a representa- 
tion of these upon canvas. The farmer's canvas is his 
fields, and his art materials are the soil, and the great 

^ Bagley, William Chandler: The Educative Process, 1908, pp. 58- 
65. The Macmillan Company, New York. Also Thorndike, Edward 
L.: Edttcation, 1912, pp. 9-15. The Macmillan Company, New York. 



AGRICULTURE AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION 91 

forces wrapped up in the various physical manifesta- 
tions of Nature. The artist-farmer brings perennial 
comfort and gladness to the countless millions of the 
race.^ 

In the foregoing discussion of the various aims of 
education and the relations that the subject of agri- 
culture holds to them, together with the manner in 
which it may contribute to their realization, I have 
not desired to offer any defense for their vaHdity. It 
has been the intention merely to show that the subject 
of agriculture may be used in formal instruction as a 
factor contributory to whatever end or aim of educa- 
tion might be entertained as the real one by those 
in authority over the schools. Men must be con- 
vinced of the potentiahty of agriculture as a school 
subject, no matter what their notion of the ultimate 
aim of education may be, or whether it is profession- 
ally acceptable or not. 

Review of Chapter IX 

Do you recall — 

The double purpose that is served by agricultural teach- 
ing? The test for determining whether a subject shaU 
be included in the process of educating an individual? 
The various aims of education that have been or are 
now held to be the true ones? The elements of the livelihood 
aim; and how education in agriculture may contribute 
towards its realization? The same with reference to the 

^ Cf. The Teaching of Agriculture in the High School, p. 180. 



02 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

knowledge aim? The same with reference to the mind- 
development aim? The same with reference to the com- 
plete and harmonious development aim? The same with 
reference to the refinement aim? The same with reference 
to the cultural aim? The same with reference to the 
ethical-training aim? The same with reference to the 
individual-adjustment aim? The same with reference to 
the social-service aim? 



CHAPTER X 

PEDAGOGICAL PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN THE 
TEACHING OF ELEMENTARY AGRICULTURE ^ 

Elementary agriculture as a school subject is so young 
that one of the most difficult problems confronts us 
when we undertake to define its field. Both the con- 
tent and the place in the program of studies of a school 
subject should be known before the formulation of its 
pedagogy is attempted. The first problem, then, in 
teaching elementary agriculture is to determine what 
portions — facts, principles, laws, and their appUca- 
tions — of this great subject may with profit to the child 
and the race, be taught in the elementary school. 

The time was, less than a century ago, when prac- 
tically no science of agriculture existed, although the 
art of agriculture is perhaps the most ancient. In 
America the passage of the Morrill Act by Congress, 
in 1862, laid the foundation for the building of a great 
science of agriculture; and through the application 
of its principles to the production of food, clothing, 
and shelter for man, or to the satisfying of his aesthetic 
desires, the most ancient art of agriculture has been 
transformed. When the land-grant colleges began 

' Cf. pp. 29-34, Journal of Educational Psychology for January, 
1912. 

93 



94 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

their work, many of the things which they taught 
were quite elementary. As agricultural investiga- 
tions bore fruit, and new discoveries were formulated 
into principles, the body of subject matter gradually 
grew until there came to be a great mass of agricul- 
tural information that was available for teaching. 
With the rise of the agricultural high schools, and the 
introduction of the subject of agriculture into the regu- 
lar American secondary school, at the beginning of 
the present century, much of the agricultural infor- 
mation that was considered elementary and secondary 
was handed over to these new schools and courses, for 
instructional purposes. Now, as the elementary and 
rural schools of the country are begirming to teach 
agriculture, a new division of the subject matter is 
being made, and certain phases of agriculture on the 
one hand, and of nature study on the other, are being 
formulated for use in elementary instruction. Just 
what these phases should be has not yet been definitely 
settled. However, a beginning is being made, and a 
few elemental and fundamental facts, principles, laws, 
and practices of agriculture are coming to be generally 
used. This instructional matter must meet at least 
three requirements: on the side of the home, the in- 
struction should result in some immediate economic 
benefit, and in giving the boy an intelhgent desire for 
farm life; on the side of the school, the boy should be 
prepared for continuing the agricultural work of the 
high school ; and from the standpoint of the pupil him- 



PEDAGOGICAL PROBLEMS 95 

self, the matter of instruction should be adapted to 
his nature and capacity. To ignore any of these fac- 
tors, must, at the present time, result disastrously 
to any portion of the subject, the presence of which 
may be desired in the elementary or rural schools. 

The National Educational Association Committee 
on Industrial Education in Schools for Rural Com- 
munities recommended, in 1905, that agriculture be 
taught in the upper grammar grades, indicating es- 
pecially the seventh and eighth grades, and possibly 
the sixth grade also.^ The wisdom of this recommen- 
dation is becoming more apparent as the years pass 
by. Yet, attempts are being made in some quarters 
to introduce the teaching of elementary agriculture 
into all the grades of the elementary school. There 
is a possibility that such a procedure will be justified; 
the probabihty of its eventually succeeding is, how- 
ever, seriously questioned, the error arising from the 
neglect to differentiate between agricultural nature 
study and elementary agriculture. 

Because agriculture is both a science and an art, we 
are apt to think of it as being an industrial subject. 
This it is. We must, for the present, make a distinc- 
tion between an industrial subject and a vocational 

^ See the Report of the Committee on Industrial Education in Schools 
for Rural Communities of the National Educational Association, 
pp. 44-46. 

See also Bailey, L. H.: On the Training of Persons to Teach Agricul- 
ture in the Public Schools, p. 14, Bulletin No. i, 1908, U. S. Bureau 
of Education. 



96 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

subject, in that the former affords an avenue through 
which to train the motor propensities of the pupil, 
without the aim of training him for any certain trade; 
while the latter affords motor training of a specialized 
sort with the definite purpose of training the pupil 
in some given vocation. One gives motor develop- 
ment with the view of furnishing adjustments to the 
general environments of life; the other affords manual 
training with a view of securing adjustments to spe- 
cial conditions of society. One is a training for all 
youth no matter what occupation they may later 
enter; the other is the prerequisite training for youth 
who wish to enter some special vocation, as carpenter- 
ing, blacksmithing, mechanical engineering, masoniy, 
weaving, etc. One affords a large degree of gen- 
eral culture, while the lack of it is very noticeable 
in the other. Elementary agriculture comes under 
the first class — it is an industrial subject as well as 
cultural. Agriculture is both a science and an art, 
and if its being taught in the elementary school re- 
sults in being later vocationally applied by the pupil, 
such will be only an incidental matter. 

Since agriculture is not necessarily a vocational sub- 
ject, and surely not so when taught in the elementary 
school, it is not to be taught as a vocational subject; 
and since it is not a science alone, it is not to be 
taught wholly like the pure sciences. Many of the 
principles of teaching used in the classical subjects 
are appHcable to the teaching of agriculture. For 



PEDAGOGICAL PROBLEMS 97 

example, in tHe elementary school the pupil is taught 
the principles of writing a composition; but no 
good teacher will be satisfied with the pupil's train- 
ing in this respect until he has acquired the ability 
of applying his knowledge in producing a composition. 
Just so in elementary agriculture; when a pupil learns 
the principles of raising potatoes, he should be able 
to raise them with some degree of success. As the 
composition is the expression of the pupil in the lan- 
guage class, so the patch of potatoes is the expression 
of the pupil in the class in elementary agriculture. 
If the pupil in writing his composition, omits the use 
of proper punctuation marks, it is an evidence that 
he has not learned his lesson well; the same may 
be said of the boy who secures few and small tubers 
at digging time because the bugs destroyed the po- 
tato tops. 

Similar examples might be cited with the purpose 
of showing that many of the principles of pedagogy, 
indeed most of them, that were developed from the 
teaching of the languages and pure sciences are 
applicable also to the teaching of agriculture; and 
that others may be adapted. On the other hand, 
some of the principles applicable to the teaching of 
the vocational or trade subjects are not so desirable 
in the teaching of elementary agriculture. 

The apprentice system was formerly quite efficient 
in producing skilled mechanics. The same method, 
somewhat modified, is to-day used in the technical 

AGEIC. EDUC. — 7 



98 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

training of machinists and skilled workmen in the 
technical schools; the students learn their trades by 
working at them. In agriculture, however, it would 
be difficult to realize the true educational as well as 
the industrial aims to place a boy on a farm under 
the direction of a good farmer, although the boy might 
even develop into an excellent farmer in practice. 
Many good farmers, judged from the standpoint of 
education, are woefully deficient in their mental at- 
tainments, even possessing no liberal, clear, and sys- 
tematic knowledge of their own business; and on the 
side of their physical development and adaptabil- 
ity, the same criticism holds equally true. In our 
efforts to get away from books and bookish methods 
of teaching, we must be careful lest we swing to the 
opposite extreme. 

A very comprehensive problem is the matter of deter- 
mining by experimental methods whether or not the 
principles of our present-day pedagogy, which have 
been evolved through the medium of the older school 
subjects, hold equally true when applied to this new 
field of semi-vocational-cultural training. If some 
modifications are necessary, just what are they and 
how shall they be accomplished? 

The teaching of agriculture is largely a synthetic 
process, instead of analytic. We teach how to raise 
corn instead of teaching how it was raised. There are 
those who insist that the pupil should first go through 
the experience of certain agricultural operations be- 



PEDAGOGICAL PROBLEMS 99 

fore he is given the opportunity of studying the scien- 
tific aspect of these methods. He must raise some com 
before studying its culture. The claim is that the 
pupil should first have the experience of applied science, 
so that, when he shall later study the scientific prin- 
ciples involved, he shall understand their significance 
more fully. This method would be the appHed-science 
approach carried to the extreme. On the other hand, 
it is argued that the methods of agriculture — in the 
raising of corn, for example — which are taught to 
elementary school pupils, should be only such as have 
been thoroughly tested by practical agriculturists. 
It is, therefore, not essential that the pupil first raise 
a plot of corn before he studies about raising corn. 
If the pupil has had such experience at home, or the 
opportunity of acquainting himself by observation with 
the various phases of corn raising, such experience is 
not to be despised. 

In accordance with the latter plan, which at the 
present time seems the more promising of success, the 
pupil is taught the elementary principles of agricul- 
ture throughout the school year, and near its close 
he is given the opportunity of applying his agricul- 
tural knowledge in a school garden, or home garden 
or field, whichever the case may be. This practical 
work should be carried forward during the following 
summer, if possible under the supervision of a com- 
petent teacher. The pupil's past training will give 
him weapons with which to attack agricultural prob- 



lOO AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

lems as they arise in connection with his practical 
work. He now appKes his science intelligently. 

We still have the pure science and the applied 
science, or the economic, methods of approach. In 
the former, the pupil is encouraged to learn the facts, 
principles, and laws of science for their own sake, while 
in the latter he is appealed to by the economic ap- 
plications to which these may be put. The former 
is the method that has been universally used in our 
schools in the past; but it has been pointed out,^ and 
seemingly proved, that the economic method of ap- 
proach is superior when considered by the test of 
results.^ Of course we need further tests of this prob- 
lem, especially on the large scale and under the normal 
conditions of the pupils in their local home communi- 
ties with all the usual community and public-school 
factors in full operation. The work might well be 
carried out with botany and that part of agriculture 
that deals with plants. Either spring or autumn 
might be selected as the time of year. One hundred 
schools, more or less, should be selected and paired 
off so that the schools of each pair would have very 
similar conditions of environment, community, local 
factors, equipment, teachers, number of pupils, races, 

^Hall, G. Stanley: Adolescence, Vol. II, pp. 153, 156-157. Apple- 
ton, New York, 1905. 

2 See the report of the experiment of J. P. Gilbert with pure and 
applied science methods of approach in secondary school science. 
The Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 321-330. 



PEDAGOGICAL PROBLEMS lOI 

etc. In one sciiool of each pair, the pupils should study 
elementary botany via the pure science approach; 
in the other school, elementary agriculture by the 
economic-applied science approach. The topics of 
study should be the same in both cases. After a cer- 
tain period results from all the schools should be com- 
pared. The work should first be outlined and subse- 
quently supervised by two persons — one versed in 
methods as applied to teaching elementary botany 
and the other in methods as applied to teaching ele- 
mentary agriculture. The teachers should first have 
general and specific instructions with reference to the 
purpose of the experiment, the work to be presented, 
and the methods of instruction. The examinations 
for all pupils should be of two kinds, one part on the 
basis of pure science, and the other on the economic 
or applied science basis. The results of these examina- 
tions should be passed upon by the two supervisors 
in charge. This would be a very elaborate and ex- 
tended piece of work, but it would doubtless yield 
significant results. 

Another educational problem, both administrative 
and pedagogical, concerns itself with the selection, 
organization, and teaching of a series of type habits 
associated with approved agricultural practice. Pre- 
viously acquired habits very fundamentally influence 
future acts. Habits are stable and lasting to a degree 
quite equal to that of instincts and far greater than 
that of ideas. If ideas and instincts are sufficiently 



I02 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

important to be considered as determining factors 
in the organization of teaching materials, we see no 
reason why habits should not also be so admitted.^ 
Two objects should guide in the selection of this pro- 
posed course of habits: namely, preparation for the 
high school course in "agricultural" habits, and prep- 
aration for making successful adjustments to the com- 
mon and elementary conditions of farm life. "In the 
present status of habit training in the elementary 
school, pupils enter the high school without any ade- 
quate uniformity in the automatisms that they may 
have acquired. It is true that the pupils of a class 
often do possess many automatisms in common, but 
until greater progress is made in systematic habit 
training in the elementary school, the high school 
must content itself with using such automatisms as 
its pupils have incidentally acquired or assume the 
responsibility of first developing those habits that it 
wishes to make use of in later instruction. "^ 

The selection of any program of habits must never 
lose sight of their practical usefulness in securing im- 
mediate and serviceable adjustments to farm en- 
vironments and rural life. There are many conditions 
in rural life to the stimuli of which country children 
should respond with definite automatic reactions. 
Habits of doing certain things at given times are ab- 
solutely essential in successful farming. The habits 

* Bricker, G. A.: The Teaching of Agriculture in the High School, 
p. 90. 2 Ibid. 



PEDAGOGICAL PROBLEMS 103 

of selecting seed corn in autumn; of harvesting at the 
proper time; of storing grain properly; of grafting, 
mending tools, and doing other things that may be 
scheduled for the season of least activity; of cleanli- 
ness in milking; of testing the vitality of seeds; of 
starting early plants on time; of plowing when the 
season permits; of cultivating when conditions re- 
quire; of cutting scion and stock quickly and accurately 
so that the two parts of the graft will fit together 
nicely — these are only a few of the habits that should 
be estabHshed in the hfe activities of every successful 
farmer. Although the teaching of all these various 
activities may not lie within the province of the ele- 
mentary school, yet their enumeration will serve to 
give a conception of what is needed in the matter of 
habit formation. A series of type laboratory, field, 
and home-project exercises should be planned, with 
the object of furnishing the means of forming habits 
that the stimuli of farm life will tend to set into opera- 
tion. These types should have an element of common- 
ness with conditions that the pupil will likely meet 
on the farm. This common element in the situation 
of farm life and school training will suggest the use of 
certain habits previously learned at school; hence, 
the use of type practicums in developing skill in agri- 
cultural art. It is the element of commonness that 
gives the cue. There is at present great need for such 
a systematized series of exercises for the laboratory, 
field, and home work of elementary agriculture. 



I04 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

Some of the most important pedagogical problems 
of elementary agriculture, then, are summarized by 
the following list of questions: i. What portions of 
the subject of agriculture are adapted for use in the 
elementary school? 2. In what grade or grades of 
the elementary school should elementary agriculture 
be taught? 3. Are the principles of our present-day 
pedagogy apphcable to the efificient teaching of ele- 
mentary agriculture? 4. Should experience in prac- 
tical agricultural methods precede the study of the 
scientific principles involved, or should the facts and 
principles be first studied to be followed by their prac- 
tical application or should the study of agricultural prin- 
ciples and experience in farm practice proceed con- 
comitantly? 5. Which gives the better scholastic and 
practical results, the pure science, or the economic- 
applied science method of approach? 6. Is it feasi- 
ble to organize and teach a series of "agricultural" 
habits in the elementary school? 

There are only two ways by which correct and re- 
liable answers to these questions may be secured ; either 
by long and costly experience, or by immediate experi- 
mental methods. 

Review of Chapter X 

What can you say concerning— 

The newness of the subject? The Morrill Act? Early 
work of the agricultural colleges? The work of the second- 
ary schools? The work of the elementary schools? Three 



PEDAGOGICAL PROBLEMS 105 

requisites to be met? Recommendation of N. E. A. Com- 
mittee? Agriculture as a science and an art? An industrial 
subject? A vocational subject? The position of agriculture 
as a school subject? Teaching agriculture as a science and 
an art? Methods of teaching agriculture? Synthetic proc- 
ess? TheappHed-science approach overemphasized? Infor- 
mation, then practice? The pure and appHed-science meth- 
ods of approach in teaching? Explanation of terms? An 
experiment to determine results of methods? Teaching type 
habits in agricultural activities? The importance of habits? 
Aims in the formation of agricultural habits? The enumera- 
tion of a few type habits? Need of developing the idea of 
habit formation in education? 



CHAPTER XI 

THE ADMINISTRATION AND TEACHING OF 
SCHOOL AGRICULTURE 

I. Administration 

The administration of elementary education in agri- 
culture has reference to the provision and the arrange- 
ment of facilities for instruction in this branch. The 
equipment, as teachers, apparatus, texts, gardens, 
and tools would come under this head; also, the or- 
ganization of the course of study and its location in 
the program of studies, its relations to other subjects 
in that program, and the purpose for which the course 
is to be taught. 

The Committee on Industrial Education in Schools 
for Rural Communities of the N. E. A. recommended 
in 1905 that, ''After the explicit nature study ceases 
with the fifth grade, the pupil in the rural school may 
then be taken through the elements of agriculture 
in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades." ^ Notwith- 
standing the fact that this recommendation was made 
at a time when elementary agriculture was just coming 
out of its nature-study swaddling clothes, it can be 
but httle improved upon to-day. Gradually, however, 

^ See the report of the Committee, p. 44. 
106 



ADMINISTRATION AND TEACHING 107 

real elementary agriculture has come to be limited 
mostly to grades seven and eight, while the work of 
the preceding three grades has come to be agricultural 
nature study. Agricultural nature study is to elemen- 
tary agriculture much as reading is to literature; the 
former furnishes the key by which the great riches 
of the latter are attainable. In elementary agricul- 
ture, the facts, principles, and experiences of agricul- 
tural nature study are used in the further acquirement 
of agricultural knowledge and experience. They are 
built into a system, and we have therefore, the begin- 
nings of a science. 

The placing of elementary agriculture in the upper 
grades of the elementary school, and nature study 
in the lower is thoroughly pedagogical. At different 
ages in the life of a child, he is dominated by differ- 
ent psychological manifestations. These dominant 
manifestations will determine the place as well as the 
aims of any subject in the program of studies. In 
his latter pre-adolescent age, the child becomes de- 
cidedly utilitarian in his thought and life, and con- 
sequently distinctly economic. Now, while the eco- 
noniic aim, as we have seen in a preceding chapter, 
may be regarded as one of the aims of nature study, 
it cannot be accepted as the chief one. In elemen- 
tary agriculture, however the predominance of the 
economic aim becomes its distinguishing purpose as a 
subject of study and teaching. The time for teach- 
ing so utilitarian a subject, therefore, should be at 



lo8 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

that period of the child's development when he comes 
to have a distinctly practical outlook upon hfe. This 
is about the time that he reaches the sixth or the seventh 
grade of the elementary school. 

A distinguished writer on nature study says: "There 
are comparatively few schools in which there is any 
definite place upon the program for work in nature 
study. * * * I am quite convinced, when we reach 
our ideal program there will be no period for nature 
study found upon the schedule." We should not 
say so with reference to elementary agriculture, which 
should be taught as a distinct and separate branch, 
with a definite assignment of place on the daily pro- 
gram and in the curriculum.^ 

II. Teaching 

The course in elementary agriculture should be formu- 
lated in obedience to five essential principles : 

First, the course should be general in its nature. 
As all the land of the world has been divided into 
five grand divisions, so the great subject of agricul- 
ture may also be divided: namely, plant studies, ani- 
mal studies, farm management and machine studies, 
soil studies, and studies and practice in production. 
Any adequate elementary course should include the 

1 For a fuller discussion of the question as to whether or not agricul- 
ture should be taught as a separate science, the reader is referred to 
pages 46-55 of the author's The Teaching of Agriculture in the High 
School. 



ADMINISTRATION AND TEACHING 109 

study of the more evident facts and principles from 
each of these divisions. 

Second, the subjects chosen for study should be 
fundamental, not trifling or unimportant. For ex- 
ample, a knowledge of the duality of animal forms 
in accordance with differentiation of production that 
runs through the various families of domestic animals, 
and the abihty to recognize and point out the more 
striking characteristics of these types is at once both 
general and fundamental agricultural knowledge, and 
has its place in a rudimentary course of agriculture. 

Third, the objects, facts, and principles should be 
arranged in the course so that they may be presented 
in a systematic order. The course, though elementary, 
should be a unit, complete in itself. It should be well 
balanced in that no one grand division receives much 
greater emphasis than another. If we are to teach 
elementary agriculture as a science, this requirement 
will be quite fundamental. 

Fourth, the elementary course in agriculture should 
include as objects of study, the common things of 
the farm. This implies the exclusion of those things 
that are quite unfamiliar to the pupils. There is posi- 
tively no excuse for the study of the zebra or the os- 
trich by the vast majority of the country and village 
children of the United States, where the cow and the 
turkey are better known and enter very intimately 
into their hfe experiences. Obedience to the law of 
apperception requires that this principle be followed 



no AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

in the construction of a course of study in elementary 
agriculture.^ This principle precludes the possibiHty 
of having a " cut-and-dried " course in elementary 
agriculture that is universally applicable. Only sug- 
gestive courses may be outlined, for there must be 
modifications of any general course to suit local con- 
ditions. Hence, each country, section, state, and even 
county will need a course of study in elementary 
agriculture that will embody the objects and prin- 
ciples most familiar to the agriculture of the locality 
or natural territorial division. 

Fifth, the course in elementary school agriculture 
should be so planned and constructed as to follow the 
course of the seasons. This principle is known as the 
seasonal sequence and involves the right selection of 
any agricultural topic for study during a given season 
of the year. Briefly stated, this principle is: ^/ any 
given season of the year, teach those agricultural things 
in which the farming community is interested at that 
time.^ 

A good textbook, while not an absolute necessity, is 
yet strongly recommended for the use of both the 
teacher and the pupil. The teacher mil use the book 
as a manual by which to be guided in the progressive 
and orderly teaching of the subject. The textbook 
is itself the embodiment of the author's methods for 

1 See pp. 58-63 of the author's The Teaching of Agriculture in the 
High School for a fuller discussion of this principle. 

2 Ibid., Chapter VI, " The Seasonal Determination of Sequence." 



ADMINISTRATION AND TEACHING ill 

teaching the subject. The pupils should always have 
a convenient and familiar book in which the funda- 
mentals of the subject may be read and studied. De- 
pendence upon bulletins is unsafe, because as a rule, 
they are not pedagogically written, because they tend 
to lead the inexperienced teacher to overemphasize 
the particular subjects considered in them, and because 
they are seldom at hand in sufficient quantities when 
most needed. Bulletins and magazines should be kept 
on file for reference use. 

The main purposes for teaching agriculture in the 
elementary school are cultural and pre-vocational. 
With respect to the first, no person can be said to be 
educated or cultured, who does not know something 
about agriculture, and who has not enriched liis life 
with some of its experiences. In respect to the latter, 
it must ever be maintained that the elementar>' school 
of the people cannot be made vocational in the methods 
or the results of its training. Its subjects of instruc- 
tion must ever be pre-vocational. In the elementary 
school, for example, we give the child a taste, a glimpse 
of what the practice of medicine means by teaching 
him a "smattering" of that vocation, which we call 
elementary physiology; in much the same way, through 
the study of physics, geometry, history, and civics the 
child gets a glimpse of what is involved in the voca- 
tions of mechanical and electrical engineering, civil 
engineering, and law, respectively. These elementary 
subjects may in this sense, be regarded as pre-vocational 



112 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

subjects. In much the same way the agriculture of 
the elementary school may be regarded as pre-voca- 
tional with respect to the business of agriculture. As 
teachers, we cannot hope to make efficient farmers of 
children of tender years, who have received only a 
simple course of instruction in agriculture in the ele- 
mentary school, or even the high school, where the 
subject is taught as a non-vocational subject. It 
ought to be stated here that fond parents and design- 
ing politicians ought not to expect the impossible of 
the public schools. 

III. A Suggestive Outline for a One-Year Course in 
Pre-vocational Agriculture 

FIRST HALF-YEAR 

I. Plant studies of matured plants, fruits, roots, and 
seeds. Autumn — September and October, eight weeks. 
Begin with the study of the products of those plants 
most familiar to the pupils. From the study of the 
fruits and products, proceed to the plants produc- 
ing them. These studies should be approached from 
the economic point of view. Orchard fruits, trees, 
weeds, tobacco, cotton, corn, wheat, and the more im- 
portant grains and grasses, roots and tubers, and the 
injuries from plant diseases and insect pests are among 
the principal subjects for study. There should be 
exercises in judging. An ideal of superior plants and 
fruits as well as of greater yield should be established 
in the minds of the pupils. 



ADMINISTRATION AND TEACHING 113 

2. Animal studies. Late fall and winter — November 
and December, six weeks. Begin with the animal 
products most familiar to the pupils and then proceed 
to the study of the animals themselves. Use the eco- 
nomic and applied-science approach. Animal types 
and breeds should be studied, and there should be 
exercises in stock judging. Milk, butter, wool, meat, 
eggs, and animals yielding these products, feed and 
feeding, and the proper care of farm animals are among 
the topics that should be considered. The desirability 
of superior production of quality and quantity should 
be emphasized. 

3. General farm management and machine studies. 
— (a) Farm management. Winter — December- January, 
four weeks. Agriculture should teach not only the 
principles of the production of economic materials 
but also the methods by w^hich these materials when 
produced may be conserved. General farm plans, 
systems of crop rotation, the plotting of orchards and 
gardens, the management of the dairy, plans for build- 
ing, systems of drainage, construction of fences, farm 
records and finances, and special farm problems are 
some of the topics that should be given consideration 
at this time. 

SECOND HALF-YEAR 

(b) Machine studies. Winter — January, two weeks. 
Begin with the simple farm tools, and then approach 
those machines most familiar to the pupils. Consider 

AGEIC. EDUC. — 8 



114 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

construction and the relation and function of parts. 
Make use of the motor propensities in the children. 
Emphasize the need of properly caring for machinery. 
Take to pieces and set up several farm machines. Study 
types and the reasons for the kind of work done. 

4. Soil studies. Late winter and spring — Febru- 
ary and March, eight weeks. Simple soil studies should 
first be made. Such things as the types and composi- 
tion of soils, humus, mulch, drainage, various rela- 
tions existing among soil, water, and air, soil fertility, 
soil fertility tests, fertilizers, and the use and care of 
manures may be studied. The economic appeal to 
the pupil may here be made very strong but the ideal 
of the conservation of soil fertility for future genera- 
tions should not be missed. 

5. Studies and practice in production. Spring — April 
and May, eight weeks. Under this head are com- 
bined and applied many of the principles previously 
learned. The central features here are the develop- 
ing plant and animal. The relations that soils, mois- 
ture, temperature, light, fertility, cultivation, insect 
pests, and plant diseases bear to plants; and the care, 
feeding, sheltering, and selection of animals should 
be duly considered; while the best methods of har- 
vesting, storing, grading, and marketing the products 
of both animals and plants should be emphasized. 
A greenhouse, a demonstration field, hotbeds and 
coldframes, home projects, and if possible, the main- 
tenance of marketing relations with consumers, are 



ADMINISTRATION AND TEACHING II5 

quite essential for properly carrying out this phase of 
the subject of agriculture. Provisions should be made 
for work in practical agriculture throughout the entire 
ensuing summer. 

Notes 

Half-year courses should attempt only one half of the work here 
outlined. Since agriculture is both a science and an art, both learning 
and doing are involved. 

An ideal course in agriculture is a series of type recitation, labora- 
tory, and field exercises made up of carefully selected materials, 
systematically and pedagogically arranged, around which lectures, 
reading, and quizzes center as supplementary work. The core of the 
course should bring the pupil into vital contact with the material 
objects and natural phenomena. 

It is recommended that credit in the subject of agriculture be not 
given until the next September after the pupil begins the course, thus 
giving him an opportunity to demonstrate his ability for successfully 
applying his training. 

With proper modifications this outline may, in a general way, be 
followed in the upper grammar grades of the elementary school, 
as well as in the non-vocational high school. 

IV. The Teacher 

A book might be written on special methods in 
agricultural teaching. We must, however, forego an 
elaborate discussion of the subject here and confine 
ourselves to a few fundamental suggestions, and to 
the making of a few timely cautions. 

For several years to come the majority of teachers 
of agriculture in the schools will be drawn from three 
distinct sources: namely, from the teachers of nature 
study in the grades, from agricultural college gradu- 



Il6 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

ates, and from the science teachers in the high schools.^ 
Each of these classes of teachers is prone to certain 
mistakes, which will be indicated below, in the hope 
that the liabihty to err may be anticipated and guarded 
against as much as possible. 

The nature-study teacher is apt to carry her methods 
of instruction bodily into the teaching of agriculture. 
Notwithstanding what has been said by some writers 
as to the desirability of this, such a procedure is a 
grave error. The nature-study teacher instructs with 
no idea of building the lessons into parts of a great 
science; the teacher of agriculture not only should 
do this consciously, but should also bring the pupils 
to this realization. Lessons in nature study very often 
have aims and ideals other than economic as has been 
shown in a previous chapter; but, with very few ex- 
ceptions, the predominating aim in a lesson in agricul- 
ture will be economic. In nature study, for instance, 
the mouth parts of an insect are studied in terms of 
the part they play in the economy of the animal's 
daily existence; but in agriculture these things are 
studied with reference to contributing, ultimately, 
to the welfare of man. 

The methods of approach in nature study are ideal- 
istic, often beginning with a story, a guessing game, a 

^ See the author's The Teaching of Agriculture in the High School, 
pp. VIII-IX. Also Hummel, William Granville; and Bertha Royce: 
Materials and Methods in High School Agriculture, 1913, pp. 354-355- 
The Macmillan Company, New York City. 



ADMINISTRATION AND TEACHING 117 

novel sight of experience, and ending with a satisfac- 
tion growing out of a mental condition — knowledge, 
reflection, wonderment. The method of approach in 
agriculture is materiahstic, frequently beginning with 
the commonest farm object or experience, and re- 
sulting in a job and a bank account. The nature study 
of to-day as known in the formal education of Ameri- 
can children is a subject that has become intimately 
associated with the primary and lower grammar 
grades. It is taught by methods necessary in the teach- 
ing of httle children. The boys and girls of ten to 
fifteen years are quite different from the younger 
group in their instincts, their experiences, their motives, 
and their development generally. This is eminently 
the age of the boy scout and the campfire girl. De- 
sires of physical prowess, shrewd outwitting, and eco- 
nomic gain are very prominent characteristics displayed 
by these youngsters. The methods used in teaching 
them must take account of such things. The utili- 
tarian attitude which shows the use of the subject; 
the industrial method, which exercises the muscles as 
well as the brain; the economic result, which repays 
efforts and satisfies worthy desires will all be employed 
by the wise teacher of pre-adolescent and adolescent 
children. Perhaps there is no other subject with 
which these principles of teaching can so well be 
used as with agriculture. The nature-study teacher, to 
become a teacher of agriculture, must not forget to 
readjust her methods and aims. She will recognize 



Il8 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

the new piece of human nature that she is to teach; 
and she will, therefore, not fail to select new materials 
and organize them on a new basis for instructional 
purposes. 

The agricultural college graduate, as experience has 
shown, invariably has his troubles. These arise from 
three distinct sources. First, he does not understand 
the children. Association for a period of four or more 
years with adults has given him the point of view in 
education in which only matured minds, bodies, ex- 
periences, and lives have entered. He needs to reahze 
that the pupils in the elementary and high schools 
are immature, untrained, and inexperienced. The 
driving home of tliis realization is frequently too long 
delayed. In the second place, the graduate or student 
of the agricultural college knows little about teaching 
methods. He knows agriculture, but not the child. 
The abundance of knowledge that he emits falls like 
a cataract over the heads and lives of the children, 
who emerge with the realization that there has been 
a flood, but show scarcely any evidence of moisture. 
A knowledge of the science of teaching, as well as the 
ability to apply it in practice, is quite essential in se- 
curing efficiency in education as a knowledge of the 
subject taught. One would suppose that this class 
of teacher should acquire some knowledge from his 
professors, and practice this by imitation; but, un- 
fortunately, the lack of training and ability in teach- 
ing does not always exclude learned men from the 



ADMINISTRATION AND TEACHING 119 

active teaching staff of our colleges and universities. 
Third, while the agricultural college graduate may 
know his subject thoroughly, he rarely knows what 
to omit or what to include in teaching it to the pupils 
of the public schools. He has gathered a fund of agri- 
cultural knowledge with the intention of using it on 
the farm, and not for instructional purposes. His 
knowledge has not been "educationalized." He does 
not know the philosophy, or the science, or the art of 
education; and never having been taught either by 
precept or example, why shall we expect him to under- 
stand, or to practice successfully, the teaching business? 
If he has been trained to be a farmer, a farmer he 
should be. One of the chief economic wastes in our 
educational system arises from the blunders of those 
who do not understand the business of education and 
teaching. 

The high school science teacher seldom holds the 
proper attitude toward the subject of agriculture, 
especially if his training has been in the usual college 
sciences other than agriculture. Except in the engineer- 
ing colleges and the trade schools, science is seldom 
taught as applied. The majority of college gradu- 
ates, therefore, know only pure science, while agricul- 
ture, in so far as it is a science, is an applied science. 
The attitude toward agriculture as a science should be 
industrial as well as cultural. But agriculture is more 
than a science: it is an art and a business. The 
science graduate will probably not have had any train- 



120 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION l-OR TEACHERS 

ing in the art or the business of agriculture; therefore, 
he cannot be regarded as having had adequate prep- 
aration to teach a subject two thirds of which he knows 
little or nothing about. If the average science teacher 
is permitted to teach the agriculture of the high school, 
the result must be that the pupils will have only a 
partial and lopsided view of the subject. 

There is another very serious error into which the 
science teacher is likely to fall, and this has reference 
to the methods that he uses in the teaching process. 
He will in all probability, by example and through 
his practice teaching of science, — if by good fortune 
or unusually wise guidance he has received such neces- 
sary training — have acquired the pure science method 
of approach. Pure science methods, however, are 
not applicable to the teaching of agriculture without 
important modifications. The apphed-science method 
of approach must be used. There are two fundamen- 
tal reasons for this: first, because the subject itself 
is largely an applied science; and second, because the 
pupils of the public schools, capable of receiving in- 
telligent instruction in this subject, are more readily 
appealed to and taught by the applied-science method 
of instruction. The most important thing in teach- 
ing facts and principles in agriculture is that the young 
men shall understand their application to farm prac- 
tice. There is little excuse for teaching anything in 
agriculture to country children without also teaching 
its application to the life and work of the farm. The 



ADMINISTRATION AND TEACHING i2i 

only exceptions to this rule would be in the cases of 
the girls who may never be called upon to assume 
any of the responsibilities of farming operations; and 
the pupils in city schools, who have a limited field for 
the application of the facts and principles of agriculture 
but who nevertheless, should, as a matter of culture, 
know something about agriculture. In view of these 
various handicaps, the science teacher is apt to view 
the subject of high school agriculture unsympatheti- 
cally. 

There is a fourth class of would-be teachers of agri- 
culture, but these scarcely deserve notice in this dis- 
cussion. They are persons who have been "raised 
on the farm," and who therefore think themselves 
amply qualified to teach agriculture. If this is their 
only quahfication there is certainly no excuse for their 
employment. 

The question naturally arises here, from whence 
will come our best new teachers of agriculture in the 
future? They will come from the agricultural educa- 
tion departments of our normal schools and agricul- 
tural colleges; and by the words in italics are meant 
those departments that give definite training in the 
theory and practice of teaching the subject in all 
grades of educational institutions including the ele- 
mentary school and the college. 

The use of the printed page as a means and especially 
as a guide in teaching agriculture in the public schools 
and colleges is not to be discouraged; but its over-use 



122 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

is to be condemned. The teacher must ever be mind- 
ful that the subject which he teaches is based prima- 
rily upon the commonest things of the farm and garden; 
that the book is only a record; that facts are gained, 
verified, and clarified by constant reference to the 
animal, the plant, the soil, or successful practice; 
and that the inspiration which comes from contact 
with the real physical object is not nearly so apt to 
disappear when brought into contact with real life 
on the farm as is that enthusiastic inspiration so often 
gained from mere books. 

As a final caution, teachers of agriculture should 
endeavor to secure definite and sure reactions to what 
they teach. This means that the pupils should be- 
come the possessors of clear-cut knowledge which flows 
out into actual practice. For example: after the im- 
portance of giving good care to milch cows has been 
studied, the student should be able to enumerate 
definite things that constitute the proper care of cows, 
and the cows at his home should realize that some- 
thing definite has occurred to the boy. 

Review of Chapter XI 

Epitomize what is said concerning — 

The recommendation of the N. E. A. Committee on 
Industrial Education for Rural Communities. The teach- 
ing of nature study in the lower, and elementary agri- 
culture in the upper, grades of the elementary school. 
The five principles that govern the formulation of a 



ADMINISTRATION AND TEACHING 123 

course of study in elementary agriculture. The use of 
a textbook in teaching school agriculture. The main 
purpose in teaching agriculture in the elementary school. 
The topics to be studied and their arrangement in a 
suggestive course of study. The three sources from 
which teachers of school agriculture are to be drawn. 
The shortcomings to which each of the three classes 
of teachers is liable. The probable sources from which 
the best teachers of agriculture of the future will be 
secured. The use of the printed page in teaching agri- 
culture. Definiteness in teaching agriculture. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE COOPERATIVE USE OF APPARATUS, EQUIP- 
MENT, AND ILLUSTRATIVE MATERIAL 

The apparatus required in the teaching of public 
school agriculture greatly depends upon the nature 
of the work, whether it is elementary or secondary. 
Apparatus used in the teaching of elementary school 
agriculture is usually very simple, and may often be 
made by local artisans, or sometimes by the teacher 
and the pupils. The same is true, to a somewhat 
less extent, of the apparatus needed in high school 
instruction. There is much apparatus, however, that 
needs to be accurate, and this should be purchased 
from a reliable firm. Cigar-box and tomato-can ap- 
paratus has no more place in the teaching of scientific 
agriculture than has similar apparatus in the teaching 
of botany, physics, or chemistry. In no subject can 
rural school officials better afford to invest money 
than in agriculture; for the economic returns resulting 
from instruction in this subject are much greater and 
more immediate than from any other subject now 
taught in the public schools. 

The teaching of the physical and biological sciences 
by the laboratory method, which necessitates a more 
or less complete laboratory equipment, including ap- 

124 



COOPERATIVE USE OF EQUIPMENT 1 25 

paratus, as well as a good supply of materials, is an 
expensive undertaking. If separate laboratories, equip- 
ments, sets of apparatus, and duplications of materials 
were required for each of the scientific subjects now 
taught in the schools, the expense indeed would become 
burdensome. Fortunately, the same laboratory, equip- 
ment, set of apparatus, and materials may, to a large 
extent, be used in the teaching of the various physical 
and biological sciences. By means of this cooperative 
use of equipment the expense of teaching the natural 
sciences may be greatly reduced. For the same reason, 
the introduction of a new science into the program 
of studies may not greatly increase the total cost of 
instruction. 

There are at least two different senses in which there 
may be a cooperative use of equipment and illustra- 
tive materials depending upon the relation of those 
who cooperate in the use of these things. Briefly 
stated they are as follows : — 

(i) Classes studying the same subject in different 
schools may, under certain limitations, use the same 
equipment and materials. 

(2) Classes in the same school studying different 
subjects may, in a number of cases, use the same 
equipment and materials. 

I. Cooperation in the use of equipment and ma- 
terials in the first sense either may apply to a number 
of rural schools, all under the jurisdiction of the same 
body of school officials; or it may be applicable to the 



126 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

high and elementary schools in the same building, 
as is usually the case in village and centralized rural 
school districts. The agricultural teacher, laboratory 
apparatus, and materials used for the instruction of 
the high school classes may also be utilized to a very- 
large extent for the elementary school classes in the 
same subject; the limitations being set only by the 
difference in the character of the work given to these 
classes. In the case of the scattered rural schools, 
however, the limitations are still greater. The labora- 
tory cannot be conveyed from place to place, neither 
is it usually found feasible to employ an itinerant 
teacher of agriculture; but the Kmited amount of ap- 
paratus needed in teaching rural school agriculture, 
and some of the materials, may easily be conveyed 
from school to school according to some plan of pro- 
gression. Especially is this true under district and 
township supervision. Even in states having county 
supervision, the county might be divided into "co- 
operative districts." The writer knows of an instance 
where the same milk tester was used in the agricul- 
tural instruction of the eleven different rural schools 
of a township. 

2. Cooperative use of equipment and materials in 
the second sense has especial reference to the classes 
of a single school in different scientific subjects. Many 
of the physical and biological principles and laws are 
found in two or more of the subjects pursued as sepa- 
rate courses of study in our schools. For example, 



COOPERATIVE USE OF EQUIPMENT 127 

the principle of "centrifugal force" is considered in 
both the subject of physics and in agriculture: in the 
former, as a purely scientific principle, and in the lat- 
ter, as a practical application in the testing of milk 
and the separation of cream. In the former case, the 
principle may be illustrated by means of a "centrif- 
ugal machine"; while in the latter a milk tester is used. 
If the school teaches both physics and agriculture, 
the milk tester may be used equally well in both 
classes — in one to illustrate, in the other to apply the 
centrifugal principle. 

A suggestive list of various pieces of apparatus 
and a few materials that may be used in both the 
teaching of agriculture and in some other science usually 
taught in the pubUc schools is given below: — 

Apparatus 

1. The milk tester — physics, centrifugal force. 

2. The cream separator — ^physics, centrifugal force. 

3. The drainage apparatus — physics, pressure of free 

liquids, capillarity, porosity, saturation, impenetra- 
bility. 

4. The riding plow — physics, principle of moments. 

5. The corn plow — physics, classes of levers. 

6. The pruning shears — physics, lever of the first class. 

7. Farm machinery — physics, elementary machines. 

8. The seed-corn tester — botany, growth of stem, roots, 

root-hairs. 

9. Soil tubes — physics, capillarity, adhesion, porosity. 
10. The balance — physics, chemistry, 7nass. 



128 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

11. The magnifier — botany, zoology, 

12. The microscope— biology. 

13. The Bunsen burner — physics, chemistry, biology. 

14. Test tubes — physics, chemistry, biology. 

15. Flasks — physics, chemistry. 

16. The graduate — physics, chemistry, biology. 

17. The hydrometer — physics, chemistry. 

18. The thistle tube — chemistry. 

19. The pipette — physics, chemistry, biology. 

20. The stand and rings — physics, chemistry, biology. 

21. The thermometer — physics, chemistry, biology. 

22. A set of measures — physics. 

23. A yard-and-meter stick — physics. 

24. A portable oven — biology. 

Materials 

1. Sulphuric acid — physics, chemistry, biology. 

2. Chemicals — chemistry, physics, biology. 

3. Gravel, sand, and soil — physical geography, botany. 

4. Domestic animals — zoology. 

5. Domestic plants — botany. 

6. Litmus paper — chemistry. 

7. Specimen mounts — biology. 

8. Seeds — botany. 

9. FertiUzer ingredients — chemistry. 
10. Tree seedlings — botany. 

Moving pictures seem to offer another promising 
method for illustrative teaching in agriculture through 
cooperation of a large number of schools with mov- 
ing picture film companies. Moving picture cameras 



COOPERATIVE USE OF EQUIPMENT 129 

may be operated at plowing, sheepshearing, apple- 
packing, and other agricultural contests; at state fairs, 
animal shows, and various exhibits of agricultural 
machines and products; at the agricultural colleges 
and experiment stations; and on the best farms in 
various sections of the country. Satisfactory moving 
picture machines may now be installed by schools at a 
very moderate cost. By means of them, not only 
school children, but the adults of whole commun- 
ities may be entertainingly instructed in the best 
farm practices, in the latest inventions applicable to 
the agricultural industry, and in comparative hus- 
bandry. Famous animals in all but their living pres- 
ence may be brought to every community at a trifhng 
cost. The various uses to which this method may be 
put will naturally expand in the usual process of evolu- 
tion. 

Review of Chapter XII 

What will determine the kind of apparatus to be used in 
teaching agriculture? Why should the use of good appa- 
ratus be encouraged? Why is the teaching of scientific 
subjects relatively expensive? How may this expense 
be reduced? Explain two different ways in which there 
may be cooperation in the use of apparatus, equipment, 
and materials. Recite a list of agricultural topics in the 
teaching of which use may be made of the apparatus, 
equipment, or materials commonly used in teaching other 
sciences. What use may be made, cooperatively, of the 
moving picture machine and films? 

AGRIC. EDUC. — 9 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE AGRICULTURAL DEMONSTRATION FIELD 
AND HOME PROJECTS 

In order to afford pupils an opportunity to ac- 
quire an agricultural experience, to make practical 
applications of their knowledge, to demonstrate or 
verify certain agricultural principles, and in some in- 
stances to make agricultural experiments, there are 
now two methods in common use: namely, the agri- 
cultural demonstration field and the home project. As 
methods to secure certain ends, both have demonstrated 
their value; both, also, have their limitations. 

I. The Demonstration Field 

The school garden was the forerunner of the demon- 
stration field. With the rise of nature study as a 
school subject, school gardens came into being and 
became a valuable adjunct to nature-study teaching. 
Not only does the school garden bring the child into inti- 
mate contact with nature, but from it are drawn valu- 
able materials for study in the classroom. The school- 
garden movement in America has been mostly confined 
to the cities, where it has attained its most eminent 
success. With but few exceptions, however, the move- 
ment has never succeeded well in the villages and the 

130 



DEMONSTRATION FIELD 131 

open country. " There are many reasons for this. First, 
the children of the open country and villages have 
ample gardening experience in the family gardens 
at their own homes, and the school garden is usually 
looked upon by the children as an unnecessary enter- 
prise, or a sort of "play garden" when compared with 
the real garden at home. Secondly, the children of 
the rural districts and villages are kept busy by the 
many chores of the home and there is little or no "idle 
energy" to be kept busy as in case of thousands of 
city children who never come to know, experimentally, 
the valuable training that results from doing chores. 
Thirdly, the homes of the children of the country are 
too distantly scattered to permit the close and fre- 
quent attention necessary to make school gardening 
enterprises successful. There may be additional rea- 
sons, but these are the most obvious. 

The school garden has come to be an institution of 
the grades in city schools. It is the adjunct of the 
nature-study course, and is dominated by nature- 
study methods. It is not intended to serve scientific 
purposes, but the purposes of nature study. The 
gardens are usually small, consisting of back yards 
and vacant city lots. The plots of individual pupils 
frequently measure only 5 feet by 10 feet, or even less. 
The economic aim seldom receives serious considera- 
tion from the practical standpoint. The school garden, 
encumbered with its traditional ideas and practices, 
its limitations in purpose, its restrictions in size, and 



132 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

its lack of definite scientific aims, is ill adapted to serve 
the best purposes of school agriculture. The school- 
garden idea, as it exists to-day, needs to be greatly 
modified, in respect to purpose, organization, manage- 
ment, and size when used as an adjunct of school agri- 
culture; and even another name is suggested to indicate 
the truer meaning of the piece of ground used in con- 
nection with the class in elementary or secondary agri- 
culture.^ 

1 The following references are given for the benefit of those who 
desire to make a further study of the school garden: 

Jewell, James Ralph: Agricultural Education hiduding Nature 
Study and School Gardens, pp. 148. U. S. Bureau of Education, 
No. 2, 1907. (See Bibliography, pp. 128-133.) 

Greene, Louise: Among School Gardens, pp. 388, 1910. Charities 
Publication Committee, New York. 

Davis, B. M.: School Gardens for California Schools, pp. 79, 1905. 
Bulletin No. i, State Normal School, Chico, California. 

Sipe, Susan B.: School Gardening and Nature Study in English Rural 
Schools and in London, pp. 37. U. S. Office of Experiment Stations, 
Bulletin 204, 1909. Washington, D. C. 

Galloway, B. T. : School Gardens, pp. 47, 1905. Bulletin No. 160, 
U. S. Office of Experiment Stations, Washington, D. C. 

Babcock, Ernest B.: Suggestions for Garden Work in California 
Schools, pp. 48, 1909. Circular 46, University of California, College 
of Agriculture, Berkeley, California. 

McCready, S. B.: Gardening for Schools, pp. 32, 1906. Bulletin 
152, Ontario Department of Agriculture, Toronto, Canada. 

Pierce, John B.: School Gardening, pp. 11, Hampton Leaflets, 
April, 1906. Hampton Institute Press, Hampton, Va. 

Macfeat, Minnie: Elementary Agriculture and School Gardening, 
pp. 40, Bulletin No. 4, April, 1910. Winthrop Normal and Industrial 
College, Rock Hill, S. C. 



DEMONSTRATION FIELD 133 

The demonstration-field idea is a more serious effort 
to apply systematically the principles and practices 
of scientific agriculture to the management of the soil 
and the cultivation and production of farm and garden 
crops. Here is where the pupils are given an oppor- 
tunity to apply much of the knowledge of agriculture 
which they have acquired during the school year. 
After they have learned about plants and their culti- 
vation, soil and the principles of its management, op- 
portunity should be given the pupils to have some 
practical experience in the art of agriculture. To learn 
the theoretical principles of potato growing is not 
sufficient; the boy needs, in addition, to get on the 
business end of a hoe or plow. The demonstration 
field affords a practical means for accomplishing this 
purpose. It is here where about half of the year's work 
is correlated and summarized. 

Gang, E.: School Gardens, pp. 1067-1084, Report of U. S. Commis- 
sioner of Education for 1898-99. (Historical.) 

School and Home Gardening, ■p^. /^S- Bulletin No. 31, 1910. Bureau 
of Education, Manila, P. I. 

Nathan, Stella and Miller, Caro: Lessons in Gardening and Nature 
Study, pp. 37. Director School Gardens, Philadelphia, Pa. 

Corbett, L. C: The School Garden, pp. 40, 1905. Farmers' Bulletin 
218, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 

Various publications of the Home Gardening Association of Cleve- 
land, Ohio. 

Annual reports of the Winnebago County Schools by Co. Supt. 
O. J. Kern, Rockford, 111. 

The Rural Educator, Vol. Ill, Nos. i, 2, 3, and 4 (January to 
April, 1914) The Rural Educator Co., Columbus, Ohio. 



134 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

It makes little difference, from the educational 
point of view, whether the field is owned and operated 
by the school, or whether fields at home are at the 
disposal of the pupils. In most rural districts and in 
many villages, it will be found impracticable to main- 
tain a school field. Where it is found practicable, the 
school demonstration field is to be recommended. To 
other schools, a field at home for each pupil will be a 
valuable adjunct to the work in agriculture. In both 
cases the teacher of agriculture should be the general 
supervisor of the work carried forward. 

The demonstration field is to a course in school 
agriculture, what the laboratory is to a course in phys- 
ics. The field should in fact be one of the out-of-door 
laboratories of the agricultural class. It is better than 
any blackboard, for it deals with first-hand materials. 
Its examples are living reaHties that challenge the most 
skillful master. Life and increase are the rewards of 
the young farmer's success; death, the result of his 
failure. Familiar life problems are presented in its 
management wherein the common school subjects — as 
arithmetic, composition, reading, geography, and phys- 
iology — are utilized in finding their solutions. The 
mistakes of the field are not easily erased, and their 
stubborn persistence teaches valuable lessons not 
easily forgotten. On the other hand, the successes do 
not easily fade but become more apparent with each 
day's growth, continually inspiring the ambition of the 
boy to greater and better achievements. Without 



DEMONSTRATION FIELD 135 

further discussing the educational values of this idea, let 
us turn to the practical phases of the planning and the 
making of a demonstration field. What we have fur- 
ther to say on this subject is especially apphcable to the 
seventh and eighth grades and to the high school. 

The size of the field will depend on the number of 
pupils who are to cultivate and care for it. Each 
pupil should have at least one eightieth part of an 
acre — two square rods — if the work is to be done at 
the school; if the work is to be done at home, a much 
larger area might easily be cared for. The present 
discussion will concern itself with the school demon- 
stration field, and appropriate modifications may easily 
be made in the case of the home field or club acre. 
One fortieth of an acre, or more, may be given to each 
pupil, if the school has a sufficient amount of land at 
its disposal and the pupil promises to give the extra 
care needed outside of school hours. However, one 
eightieth of an acre will be the unit here used. If the 
class in agriculture numbers twenty pupils, a one- 
fourth-acre tract of land will be sufficient for provid- 
ing an individual plot for each pupil. But there is an- 
other consideration. It has been found, by experience, 
that it is advantageous to have about one fourth of the 
field cultivated and cared for by the pupils in common. 

The size and shape of the unit or individual plot 
should be one rod wide by two rods long. Four of these 
plots are conveniently placed together in one group. 
Around each group should be a two-foot path. By such 



136 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

an arrangement, each plot will have a path on a long 
and a short side. The following diagram of a garden will 
make this arrangement clear. A three-foot path should 



— ■// ■ 1 


/ 


I 


1 


JO 


.J 


4 




// 


I!. 




!l 


5 


t 




n 


/4 


' 


g 




15 


!(, 


* -s- - 1 



surround the field. The longer dimension of the plots 
may extend in any direction, but the preference lies 
with the east and west. It is recommended that 
it be planned to run the rows lengthwise of the plots, 
and that the rows extend continuously across all 
of them from one end of the field to the other. This 
will make cultivation by horse power more easily per- 
formed. The tall plants should be placed in the most 
northerly plots and rows, and those that do not extend 
far above the surface of the ground in their habits 
of growth should be kept to the south side of the field. 
In this way no plants will be shaded by taller ones 
standing to the south of them. If a fence must be 
built about the field, it is recommended that the ends 
be made of removable panels, or a strip of sod be main- 



DEMONSTRATION FIELD 137 

tained at each end of the field inside the fence, so that 
in using a horse in cultivation, he may be turned out- 
side of the cultivated area when the ends of the rows 
are reached. 

After the site has been chosen, the ground should be 
plowed. This should be done as early as possible in the 
spring, if, indeed, it was not done the previous fall. 
After the soil has been somewhat pulverized by disking 
and harrowing, the area should be measured off into 
groups of individual plots, with proper allowances 
for the paths between the groups and around the 
whole field. The writer has found it advantageous to 
measure around the whole space, driving stakes at the 
intersections of all boundaries of plots with the borders, 
as indicated by the dots in the diagram. Cords of 
binder twine may then be stretched across the field 
both ways and attached to the border stakes. After- 
wards a stake should be driven at the intersections of 
the cords, each of which should be fastened to the stakes 
with staples. After this is done, all cords crossing paths 
(indicated by dotted fines in the diagram) should be 
cut away. Each plot will then be inclosed by a cord. 
When the crops are up, the cords may be removed if 
desired. This method saves much unnecessary meas- 
uring and w^alking. 

When the plots have been staked and lined, they 
should be numbered with markers and assigned to the 
pupils. A group of plots, equal in area to one fourth or 
one fifth of the whole field should be reserved for the 



138 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

"common lot" where all the pupils may have an oppor- 
tunity to work at various times, especially if any finish 
their work before the others are through. Work will 
then begin on the preparation of the seed bed as soon 
as the season and the condition of the soil will permit. 

Under proper restrictions, it will be found wise for 
the teacher to permit the pupils to select the crops they 
are to grow. The crop or crops selected should be made 
the object of special study. In some cases it may be 
sufficient merely to produce a harvest; but in most cases 
some experiment should be made or some agricultural 
fact demonstrated or verified. For example, if a boy 
should choose potatoes for his plot, it might perhaps be 
sufficient for him to demonstrate his ability to raise a 
crop of potatoes. In addition, he might demonstrate, 
for example, the values of mulch by cultivating the 
halves of his plot in different ways. Two or more boys 
might work together to show the effect of various 
methods of cultivation; two boys might show the rela- 
tive values of dust and straw mulches; a third and a 
fourth, the relative effects of deep and shallow planting; 
and a fifth and a sixth the difference resulting from 
spraying and the lack of it. These are merely sugges- 
tive experiments and demonstrations. Each crop 
presents its problems, for the solution of which ex- 
periments may be carried on; and its facts, which afford 
the bases for demonstrations and verifications. In each 
case there should be definite and quite complete plans 
of work prearranged. 



DEMONSTRATION FIELD 



139 



Not the least important feature is the record of each 
plot. This should be concise and complete. Each oper- 
ation from the breaking of the ground to the gathering 
of the crop should be described and dated. The con- 
ditions of the season, the weather, and the soil should be 
noted; the rainfall recorded; and no factor that might in 
any way influence the crop for better or for w^orse should 
be overlooked. The hours of labor and all expenditures 
and receipts should be noted. The accompanying form 
for making a chronological record has proved quite 
satisfactory. 

AGRICULTURAL DEMONSTRATION FIELD AND HOME PROJECT WORK 
AT THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 

CHRONOLOGICAL PLOT AND PROJECT RECORD 

Sheet No 



Instructor's Record 



Year 



Name and Address of Agriculturist 



Crop or Project Size, No. or Location of Plot or Project 

Draw map of field to scale on back of first sheet. Give statement of pur- 
pose and plan of work on back of second sheet. Keep record strictly 
up to date. 



DATE 
Month— Day 


OPERA- 
TION OR 
OBSERVA- 
TION 
What, When, 
Where, How, 
Why, etc. 


LABOR 
Time, 
Rate, 
Cost 


MATERIALS 

AND TOOLS 

USED 

Quantity, 

Quality, 

Wear, Cost 


RESULTS 
Immediate, 

Final, 
Production 


FINANCIAL AC- 
COUNT 


Income 


Expenses 

















When the crop is sold and the cashbook balanced, a 
profit should be shown. Otherwise the methods of 



I40 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

agriculture employed are not to be recommended. In 
case of demonstrations conducted to show the inferior- 
ity of certain agricultural practices, a deficit may be 
expected. The same results may also be expected in 
connection with some experiments. A deficit resulting 
from any method of agriculture will tend to prove that 
method an undesirable one. The method of cultivation 
and care which shows the greatest returns, other things 
equal, is the one preferred; for the object of scientific 
agriculture is to secure the greatest production of 
superior crops at the least cost without deterioration 
in soil fertility. 

It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the demon- 
stration field should be made an economic success to 
the extent of conducting it on a self-supporting basis. 
This can be done, and has been done.^ The number of 
questionable agricultural practices to be demonstrated 
in the school field, should therefore be limited during 
any one year, and extensive experimentation cannot 
be permitted. It is the chief function of the demon- 
stration field to illustrate and to inculcate good and 
acceptable practices of agriculture which have been 
thoroughly tested and verified by the agricultural experi- 
ment stations. Examples of bad practices will probably 
be in sufficient evidence somewhere in the neighborhood 
to emphasize the good methods of the school demon- 
stration field by way of contrast. Experiments should 

^ See A. G. Fletcher on " Running the School Farm on a Paying 
Basis " in The Rural Educator for June, 1914 (Vol. Ill, pp. 107-108). 



DEMONSTRATION FIELD 141 

be carried on in about the same degree — considering 
area and probable economic loss — as can be recom- 
mended to the man who is actively engaged in success- 
ful farming. 

To place the school demonstration field on a paying 
basis and keep it there, will, of course, require alertness, 
appHcation, business ability, and industry on the part 
of the teacher of agriculture and his pupils. Of course, 
the school and community should be willing to give the 
subject of school agriculture adequate encouragement, 
similar to the encouragement which is actually given 
to the industry by rural society as a whole. Laziness 
or inefficiency in either pupils or teacher cannot be 
tolerated. The success of the demonstration field 
ought to be made the crucial test of the success of the 
instruction in agriculture. For this reason, credit should 
not be granted the pupil until after the harvest and sale 
of the products of his plot — especially, if the under- 
taking is supposed to be an economic one. The same 
rule of economic production should also be applied to 
the teacher of agriculture in order to determine the 
advisabihty of his retention as the teacher of this 
subject. 

What is said in reference to the teacher's respon- 
sibihty must be carefully quahfied by the attitude of the 
community and school toward the subject of agricul- 
tural instruction. It is also to be expected that the 
first cost of purchasing the field and the equipment 
necessary for its operation will be borne by the school 



142 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

authorities. The cost of operating and the upkeep 
should be the basis of calculating the profitableness 
of the undertaking, and the computation should extend 
over a number of years, because some unfavorable 
years might naturally show a deficit. On the other 
hand, the school farm should not be expected to become 
a source of revenue to the school or community. 

A Suggestive List of Demonstrations, Veri- 
fications, AND Experiments for the School 
Demonstration Field 

I. Demonstrations 
By the most approved methods, as advocated by 
your state agricultural experiment station, or another 
acceptable authority, raise the following: 

Garden Crops 

1. One plot of potatoes. 

2. One plot of tomatoes. 

3. One plot of cabbage. 

4. One plot of beets. 

5. One plot of onions. 

6. One plot onion sets from seed. 

7. One plot of beans. 

8. One plot of peas. 

9. One plot of turnips. 

10. One plot of pickles. 

11. One plot of squash. 

12. One plot of muskmelons. 

13. One plot of watermelons. 



DEMONSTRATION FIELD 143 

14. One half plot of radishes. 

15. One half plot of lettuce. 

16. One half plot of celery. 

17. One half plot of peppers. 

18. One half plot of assorted flowers. 
Other vegetables. 

Field Crops 

1. Two plots of field corn. 

2. One plot of sweet corn for seed. 

3. One plot of sweet corn for roasting ears. 

4. One plot of pop corn. 

5. Two plots of Kafir corn. 

6. One plot of wheat. 

7. One plot of oats. 

8. One plot of buckwheat. 

9. One plot of alfalfa. 

10. One plot of clover. 

1 1 . One plot of timothy. 

12. One plot of vetch. 

13. One plot of soy beans. 
Other field crops. 

Small Fruits and Perennials 

To be continued at least two years and assigned to one 
pupil during each year. 

1. One plot of strawberries. 

2. One plot of raspberries. 

3. One plot of blackberries. 

4. One plot of roses. 

5. One plot of rhubarb. 
Additional perennials. 



144 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

Miscellaneous 

Perform one of the following tasks in accordance with 
approved methods: 

1. Prune one or more of the trees of the school orchard 
or grounds. 

2. Plant a tree in the school orchard or grounds and 
care for it for one year. 

3. Raise a plot of apple seedlings. 

4. Tongue graft one half of the apple seedlings raised 
in number 3. 

5. Set out the grafted trees into the field nursery plots. 

6. Sell the year-old nursery stock from one plot. 

7. Raise a plot of peach seedlings. 

8. Bud one half of the peach seedlings raised in num- 
ber 7. 

9. Set out the budded stock of number 8. 

10. Demonstrate a three-year rotation. 

11. Demonstrate the value of a catch crop as a source of 
humus. 

12. Demonstrate the process of inoculating the soil 
of a plot with soil taken from a field of clover showing 
tubercles. 

Additional agricultural activities may be assigned as 
tasks. 

2. Verifications 

The agricultural experiment stations have estab- 
lished many facts in regard to the best methods to be 
followed in agricultural operations which they recom- 
mend. Some of these facts need to be verified to make 





SCHOOL BOYS AT WORK ON THEIR HOME PROJKCTS 



DEMONSTRATION FIELD 145 

their meanings clear and importance impressive. Many 
farmers need to be "shown." Some of the things that 
may profitably be verified from time to time in various 
communities are the following: 

1. Wheat grows from seed wheat, and cheat from cheat 
seed. 

2. Better corn is produced by shallow cultivation than 
by deep. 

3. Alternate rows may be planted with corn No. i and 
No. 2, but No. I may be kept pure, if all the tassels are 
removed from No. 2. 

4. When white corn becomes crossed with yellow corn, 
the cross is shown by the presence of reddish or yellowish 
coloring along the sides of the grains. When the cross is 
vice versa, the grains are capped with white. 

5. Potatoes should be treated for scab before being 
planted. 

6. It pays to spray potatoes. 

7. Root crops are injured by the application of lime to 
the soil in which they are grown. 

8. Leguminous crops will not do well in a sour soil; 
the conditions for their growth can be greatly improved by 
the use of lime to sweeten the soil. 

9. Crops grow better in a drained, than in an undrained 
soil. 

10. A dwarfed apple tree may be produced by grafting 
an apple scion on a quince root. 

11. It pays to spray fruit trees. 

12. Certain hardwood plants may be propagated by 
layering. 

AGRIC. EDUC. — 10 



146 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

3. Experiments 

It is perhaps admissible for young people to under- 
take "experiments," provided the problems proposed 
for solution are not too difficult; but the work necessary 
for their solution should not be extended over more than 
two or three years. Experimentation, in its true mean- 
ing, is an undertaking for adults who have reached some 
degree of specialization, each working in the field in 
which he proposes to make original research. However, 
pupils in the pubhc schools may be taught and en- 
couraged to investigate by experimentation facts and 
principles which they do not understand. If possible, 
the results of such work should not be obtainable in 
any other way, else, should the pupil learn the fact or 
principle by reading, his "experiment" becomes merely 
a verification of something that he already knows to be 
common knowledge. Public school, even high school, 
students need not be expected to discover many new 
things that will enhance to any appreciable degree 
the sum total of human knowledge. However, these 
young scientists-in-the-making may profitably learn the 
method by which new facts and principles are dis- 
covered to the race. Also, the scientific method may 
find a place in the future operations of the farms 
of which these pupils may become the owners or 
managers. 

The following brief list of experiments will be sugges- 
tive; others may readily be added. 



HOME PROJECTS 147 

1. What is the best depth for planting corn, and why? 

2. What is the most economical distance for planting a 
certain variety of sweet corn? (Judgment to be based on 
profit.) 

3. Will large seed potatoes produce a better crop than 
small seed potatoes? 

4. Is it a good practice to hill potatoes? 

5. Is a straw mulch better than a dust mulch for raising 
the potato crop? From which method will the greater 
profit be realized? 

6. Can a tomato scion be grafted upon a potato stock 
and two different crops produced by the same plant — a 
crop of potatoes underground, and a crop of tomatoes 
above ground? 

7. Should tomato vines be staked, or allowed to fall 
to the ground? Which method will produce more? Will 
there be any difference in the quality of the product? 

8. Which is the better method for cultivating beets, 
by planting them in the top of ridges or by level culture? 

9. Test the soil of all the plots of the demonstration 
field for acidity. 

10. Determine the fertihzer needs of a group of plots. 

II. Home Projects 

A home project is a thing to be done on the home 
farm, under the conditions which it presents, involving 
an application of the student's school training.^ In 
other words, it is a definite agricultural task assigned 

1 See Chapter V of the Repoi-t of the Board of Education on Agri- 
cultural Education, which was submitted to the Legislature of Mas- 
sachusetts, 191 1. 



148 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

to the pupil to be worked out at home. It should be 
adapted to the pupil's home conditions and restricted 
in its size to his capabilities. The home task is supposed 
to be under the direction of the teacher of agriculture, 
yet the pupil's home folks cooperate with him in carry- 
ing the project forward to a successful issue. The school 
furnishes the knowledge and the direction, while the 
home gives suitable encouragement and help. 

In beginning a series of projects in any community, 
care should be used not to undertake anything too 
difficult. If there is a similarity among several of the 
projects, a certain amount of competition may be 
evoked, while the work may be more easily directed by 
the teacher in charge. When the workings of the plan 
have become more familiar to the teacher, the pupils, 
and the community, more comprehensive projects, 
and a greater variety of them, may be undertaken with 
greater assurance of success than if large undertakings 
were attempted in the beginning. 

The principle of economic results, which involves 
the keeping of a record of the project, as well as other 
principles set forth in connection with the demonstra- 
tion-field projects, are also valid in connection with this 
home work. The home project is usually a larger under- 
taking than the work on the demonstration field, and 
may be carried on with animals as well as with plants. 
There will, as a rule, be a greater variety of activities 
open to the project phase, and work with farm animals 
is especially favored. The scholastic work of the school 



HOME PROJECTS 149 

should anticipate and be coordinated with the projects 
of the pupils. 

The home project and the demonstration garden are 
frequently placed in antithesis in respect to their rela- 
tive merits in agricultural instruction; nevertheless, we 
shall not here consent to employ this method of com- 
parison. Both have their legitimate places in modern 
rural education and under various conditions each may 
in turn be very satisfactorily used. 

In many educational systems it will be found advan- 
tageous to use both methods for securing to the pupils 
the practical experience which they need to round out 
their theoretical agricultural training. The demon- 
stration field will furnish land for landless pupils. Both 
plans will be found valuable for extending the most 
approved methods of agriculture to the farming com- 
munities.^ 

A List of Home Projects 

The following list of home projects may be found 
suggestive to beginners: 

1. The raising of an acre of corn with profit. 

2. The raising of one fourth acre of potatoes for profit. 

3. The raising of one tenth acre of tomatoes and canning 
them, showing profit. 

4. The raising of an acre of wheat with profit. 

1 See C. G. Selvig on Home Project vs. Laboratory and School 
Garden Plat Work for High School Students in addresses delivered 
before the Washington meeting of the American Association for the 



I50 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION I-OR TEACHERS 

5. The raising of an acre of oats with profit. 

6. The raising of a quarter-acre of melons for profit. 

7. The raising of a quarter-acre of strawberries for two 
years for commercial purposes. 

8. The raising of ten apple trees, developing them from 
the seed, budding five, and grafting five of the seedlings. 

9. The raising of one acre of alfalfa and keeping of 
record to show profit or loss. 

10. The raising of a calf. 

11. The raising of a colt. 

12. The raising of two pigs. 

13. The raising of two sheep. 

14. The raising of a cat. 

15. The raising of a dog. 

16. Plant and care for two flower boxes with areas of 
not less than 5 square feet each. 

17. Plant and care for the family garden. 

18. The raising of a brood of chickens (with hen), keeping 
cost record to determine final profit. 

19. Raise a brood of chickens using incubator and 
brooder. 

20. Raise one fourth acre of pop corn, and present 
record of cost and receipts. 

21. Keep the expense and receipt record of the farm for 
one year. 

Advancement of Agricultural Teaching, Nov., 1913. Bulletin, U. S. 
Bureau of Education, 1914. 

Also William T. Bavvden in Vocational Education for November, 
1913, pp. 86-105. 

Stimson, R. W.: The Massachusetts Home Project Plan of Voca- 
tional Agricultural Education, Bulletin, 1914, No. 8. U. S. Bureau of 
Education, Washington, D. C. 



HOME PROJECTS 151 

22. Keep an itemized account of all farm or home in- 
comes and expenditures for 30 days. 

23. Keep an itemized account of producing and market- 
ing a field of not less than ten acres of corn. 

24. Plan and carry out a three-year rotation of crops. 

25. Plan and build a strip of road. 

26. Investigate and purchase the materials for a fence, 
and build it. 

27. Plan, estimate the cost, purchase the materials for 
a ditch, and dig it. 

28. Try out three kinds or brands of fertilizers on the 
home place. 

29. Test five kinds of fertilizers on section plots in a 
cornfield. 

30. Feed one or two cows with balanced rations and note 
the effect on production as compared with previous ratio 
of production with cows not scientifically fed. 

31. Feed an animal for sixty days. (Pupil to determine 
the ration, keep cost and production record for profit.) 

32. Feed a pig for two months, keeping a cost record of 
labor and feed to determine the profit. 

33. Test and weigh the milk from two or more cows 
daily for one week each month throughout one year. 

34. Weigh and test the milk of one cow for thirty 
days. 

(Testing once each day, alternating morning's and evening's 
milk.) 

35. Produce one fourth acre of roasting ears and present 
record showing all expenses and incomes to show profit 
or loss. 

36. Spray a small orchard of about 25 trees. 



152 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

37. Prune three different kinds of fruit trees by ac- 
ceptable methods. 

38. Set out twenty-five orchard or shade trees. 

39. Care for 3-5 fruit trees for one year. 

40. Cultivate ten acres of corn. 

41. Plow five acres of ground with a breaking plow. 

42. Treat a peck of seed potatoes for scab and compare 
production with that of an untreated peck. 

43. Treat ten bushels of seed wheat for stinking smut 
with the formalin treatment. 

44. Plan and plant the home yard for beautification. 
(Cost record to be kept and enhanced value of property 
to be determined by three disinterested persons.) 

45. Study twenty common farm birds with special refer- 
ence to their identification, habits, and economic worth 
or nuisance. 

46. Collect, identify, and mount twenty common farm 
weeds. 

47. Collect twenty common insects, presenting the vari- 
ous stages of five. Identify and give economic importance. 

48. Make a survey of a community with reference to 
neglected machinery exposed to the weather. 

49. Make a corn tester, and test twenty-five ears of seed 
corn. 

50. Make a sawbuck. 

51. Build a hog cot. 

52. Make a set of doubletrees. 

Note. — A list of fourteen vegetable projects, with detailed direc- 
tions for carrying them out, will be found in Bulletin No. i, 1911, of 
the Massachusetts State Board of Education, Boston, entitled Agri- 
cultural Projects for Elementary Schools; also pp. 15-23, Bulletin 



HOME PROJECTS 153 

No. 10 (December, 191 2) entitled, Junior Agricultural Association 
of Michigan for Boys, Department of Agricultural Education, 
Michigan Agricultural College, East Lansing. Project Study Outlines 
for Vegetable Growing are the subjects of two bulletins issued by the 
Massachusetts State Board of Education (Boston), Numbers 5 (19 12) 
and 9 (1913). Home Projects for School Agriculture by A. W. Nolan, 
bulletin, 1913, State College of Agriculture, Urbana, 111. 

Review of Chapter XIII 

State briefly — 

Why school gardens have not succeeded well in the 
rural districts. How the school garden has become an 
adjunct to the city schools. The titles and authors of 
some of the leading books and bulletins on school gardens. 
The purpose of the demonstration field. The recommenda- 
tions made in reference to the size of the field and the in- 
dividual plots. The method of arrangement for the plots, 
and other details with reference to their management. 
The reasons for having a "common lot." Some of the 
problems to be worked out in connection with the plots. 
The items to be noted in a plot record. The reasons why 
the demonstration field should be made an economic success. 
How both the pupil and the teacher of agriculture may be 
held responsible for making the demonstration field economi- 
cally successful. The distinguishing difierence among the 
demonstration, the verification, and the experiment. Name 
a few of each. What is meant by the home project? Some 
of the things to be kept in mind in beginning home-project 
work in any community. Some of the advantages of the 
home-project method. Any disadvantages. What kind of 
work may be used for home projects? 



CHAPTER XIV 
BOYS' AND GIRLS' AGRICULTURAL CLUBS 

I. Agricultural Clubs in General 

Boys' and girls' clubs are to the formal school work 
in agriculture and home economics what the literary 
society is to the formal classroom course in English. 
The theoretical knowledge that has been gained at 
school is applied in the club work; and the art side of 
these practical subjects, which is so important and which 
cannot well be developed under school conditions, is 
given abundant opportunity to contribute its share to 
the education of the boy and girl. The club idea may 
be regarded as the democratic substitute for the appren- 
tice system of monarchical times: it places a premium 
on initiative instead of on blind imitation and sub- 
servient dependence upon explicit and minute direction ; 
it encourages independence and ownership rather than 
servitude for the enrichment of another; it encourages 
economic production instead of extravagant methods 
of husbandry; it instills the idea of the dignity of labor 
and emphasizes the disgrace of idleness ; it provides for 
economic, intellectual, and social rewards to the youth 
who distinguishes himself in its activities. 

A club is an association of boys and girls who enter 
into a competition to determine who can grow, or make 

154 



AGRICULTURAL CLUBS 155 

the most and best products under certain rules, and to 
exhibit samples of their products. There are many 
kinds of agricultural clubs, as com clubs, wheat clubs, 
potato clubs, tomato clubs, cotton clubs, tobacco 
clubs, pig clubs, poultry clubs, etc. Each club is 
usually named for that particular farm product to 
which special attention is directed with reference to 
learning about the best practical methods for its pro- 
duction. Sometimes the club undertakes several farm 
activities, and then it is usually designated as an 
agricultural club; and this would seem to be the trend 
of development, particularly as the club comes to be 
more favorably regarded with each passing year, as 
a desirable auxiliary organization of the public school 
system. 

The purposes of the club, as explained by Mr. 0. H. 
Benson, U. S. specialist in charge of club work are as 
follows: "To arouse interest and wholesome respect for 
the farm and the rural home in every member at the 
opportune time; to teach children the elementary 
lessons of agriculture and true home hfe, and to carry 
to them the useful and practical information that has 
been established into facts at experiment stations and 
crystallized in the classroom; to encourage club mem- 
bers to be constructive citizens, producers as well as con- 
sumers; to teach and demonstrate on the home acres 
that greater yields at less expense on less acres are 
entirely possible in American agriculture; to show the 
relations of the club acre, garden plot, and home interest 



156 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

to our common school, its classroom, and the textbook 
by systematic correlations." ^ 

The promoting agencies of clubs are various. In 
many instances they are local organizations intimately 
connected with the agricultural work of the schools. 
This is, without question, the best attachment of 
agricultural clubs for educational purposes. In some 
states the agricultural colleges are the active promo- 
tors, while in others this work is in the charge of the 
agricultural experiment station, the state department 
of agriculture, or the state department of education. 
Sometimes two or more of these agencies cooperate in 
the advancement of club work. The ofhce of Farm 
Management in the United States Department of 
Agriculture has, in recent years, been very active in 
promoting club work in cooperation with some agency 
in the various states. The success of the plan was quite 
phenomenal in the Southern states and is now develop- 
ing very rapidly in the Northern states. The purpose 
has been expressed of extending the plan to every state 
of the Union. 2 

The county Y. M. C. A. has been very active in the 
organization of clubs among country boys and girls 
with good success. Other organizations have likewise 

1 See The Rural Educator, Vol. I, p. 30. 

^ Complete information as to the methods of organization, coopera- 
tion, and plan of work may be secured by addressing Mr. O. H. 
Benson, Specialist in charge of Club Work, Bureau of Plant Industry, 
U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 



AGRICULTURAL CLUBS 157 

been active, as Farmers' Institute organizations, and 
country churches. The popular nature of the club is 
apt to make it especially liable to abuse for commercial 
and political purposes. Taking the county as a whole, 
and speaking of the various kinds of rural industrial 
clubs, we may still hken them to a species of wild 
animal in the educational world, which is potential 
with possibilities, but which needs yet to be tamed 
and harnessed. To be most serviceable as an aid to 
education, the club needs to become a recognized 
auxiliary of the public schools, under its control and 
management, and contributory to its best teaching and 
highest aims in rural and agricultural teaching. Under 
the patronage of the public schools, the club idea seems 
destined to reach its highest function of serving public 
education and industrial development among the young 
people of the country. In this relationship both its 
efficiency and its economy will be best served. The 
county superintendent of schools seems to be the most 
logical officer to direct and supervise, in a general way, 
club activities for educational purposes ; while the direc- 
tion of the individual club workers should be one of the 
duties of the teacher of agriculture in the local school. 

II. The Scioto Corn Club ^ 

One of the best t5^ical agricultural clubs I have ever 
known was developed by a township superintendent, 

1 See The Rural Educator, Vol. I, pp. 53-56. The writer is indebted 
to Mr. T. W. Horton for this sketch. 



158 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

T. W. Horton, in one of the hill counties of Ohio. An 
account of this club is here given in the hope that it may 
be useful as an object lesson for those who desire in- 
formation and encouragement in forming and conduct- 
ing a similar organization in connection with their 
schools. 

The membership of the Scioto Corn Club reached a 
few more than one hundred from a total enrollment of 
180 pupils in the township schools. A premium list, 
with rules, was adopted, officers were chosen, and com- 
mittees appointed. Each school was represented on the 
committees, there being seven rural schools in the 
township, including the one-room, township high 
school. The farming land of the township varies in 
fertility from the best bottom farms to the bare hilltops, 
which are very low in productiveness. Nearly all 
conditions in rural life are present, so that the facilities 
and materials for forming an organization were no 
more promising than will be found in any average 
rural community of the Middle West. 

The preparation of pupils and patrons for the work 
of the club was the first and most important considera- 
tion. The means used were such as are at the disposal 
of every other rural school. In order to cause the people 
to feel a community of interests, and to invite their 
cooperation, central meetings of all the schools were 
occasionally held at which programs of various kinds 
were carried out. Parents were asked to visit the 
high school and listen to the talks on agriculture that 



AGRICULTURAL CLUBS 159 

were given to. the pupils. The pupils wrote requests 
for farm bulletins at the direction of the teachers and 
were furnished bulletins setting forth the work of the 
corn clubs in other states. Speakers were secured from 
the College of Agriculture for public meetings. The 
board of education generously paid all expenses incident 
to the organization and also allowed the superintendent 
additional salary for keeping in touch with the children 
by correspondence and visits during the summer 
vacation.^ The vacation period was occupied by the 
boys in growing crops and poultry. Some of the girls 
engaged in the same work and succeeded well. During 
the first two months of school nature-study collec- 
tions were made and the girls finished their needlework 
under the direction of the teachers and parents. The 
girls also practiced for the baking contests at home. 
This was work they were induced to do outside of school 
hours; otherwise it would probably not have been done. 
The exhibition was held on the last day of October. 
One hundred boys and girls made over three hundred 
entries. The showing was very creditable for the first 
effort. The experience gained will make each succeed- 
ing year's work more profitable and useful. A premium 
had been offered to the school having the best display, 

» It will be readily seen that the introduction of agriculture into the 
rural and village schools may lead to the desirability, if not the neces- 
sity, of employing the teacher of agriculture twelve months of the 
year instead of from six to nine as is now the common practice. It 
would be a blessing to both the nation and her teachers, if the pro- 
fession of teaching were placed on such a financial basis. 



l6o AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

SO that each school had to be provided with a separate 
table for its exhibits. No prizes of value were given 
for anything. The honor of being winner was the only- 
inducement for contesting, aside from the practical 
benefit derived. Neatly printed ribbons were given as 
marks of honor. ^ The district supervisor of agriculture 
for the southwest district of the state was a visitor and 
made an address. Two professors from Ohio State 
University did the judging and dehvered addresses. 
A public dinner was served by the ladies of the town- 
ship, thus affording the people an hour of pleasant 
social intercourse. 

A very noticeable result of this work is that more of 
the people are taking a deeper interest in the schools 
and, by request of the patrons the organization has 
been continued. Boys are interesting themselves in 
farm work who never before showed any inclination 
to do so. The idea is keeping the boys on the farm and 
eventually there may be no necessity for the cry, 
"Back to the farm." A feehng of loyalty to the schools 
on the part of pupils and teachers has been created and 

1 The educational expediency of giving prizes at the various kinds of 
agricultural, domestic science, and industrial exhibits is very seriously 
questioned. The resulting ideals that frequently become fixed in the 
life of a child from competing for some economic object may lead to 
the placing of erroneous values upon the activities of life. Doubt has 
been expressed as to the successful issue of industrial contests by 
school children without the offering of valuable prizes. Supt. Horton 
has shown that it can be done. It is hoped that all others will follow 
his example. 




An Oregon boy who 
raised eleven and a 
half bushels of pota- 
toes from one seed po- 
tato in one season and 
was awarded the prize 
in the state potato- 
growing contest. 



The winner of the 
first prize in the bushel, 
single-ear, and ten-ear 
corn contest in a county 
of Indiana. 




WHAT BOYS ARE DOING FOR AGRICULTURE 



AGRICULTURAL CLUBS l6l 

the schools are becoming what they ought to be — the 
social centers of the community. Added dignity has 
been given to farm and home work in the eyes of the 
boys and girls. If the exhibit of a child's work is worthy 
of the attention of his neighbors and friends, he thinks 
the work of producing it is a worthy thing for him to do. 

Each member of the club reported his experiences to 
the teachers and the superintendent. By this means 
good work in English was secured which was spon- 
taneous and natural. 

In organizing this kind of work, one should have 
a definite aim, a special line of work to develop, and 
require that this and no other be done; otherwise 
the exhibits will be too diverse. Too great diversity 
will create confusion and the children will lose sight 
of the end to be accomphshed. Emphasis should be 
put upon the rule that a child must not exhibit an 
article that is not a product of his own labor. Require 
each pupil to keep a complete and continuous record 
of his agricultural operations. Give the parents an 
opportunity to show their own products, but make their 
exhibition separate from those of the schools. Although 
some of the things produced by the members of a club 
may have no commercial value, yet it may serve a 
purpose from the standpoint of industrial education; 
for, when we educate the hand, we educate the mind 
also, and a beginning must be made somewhere. A 
child's efforts will be greater if his finished work is to 
be placed on exhibition. If a superintendent or teacher 

AGRIC. EDUC. — II 



l62 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

is willing to do plenty of patient, earnest work, he will 
find that the children's agricultural clubs afford a 
splendid opportunity to do really constructive work in 
creating school sentiment. Instead of taking time from 
the regular school studies, it really gives added force 
to them, for interest created in one department is 
contagious and will extend to others. Boys and girls 
should be so trained, and their school life so directed, 
that when they leave school and enter their chosen 
vocations, there will be as little friction as possible 
in the adjustment to their new surroundings. It is 
quite apparent that, with agriculture and rural home- 
life problems intelligently and carefully taught in the 
schools, the country children are coming into their 
true and rightful inheritance.^ 

Club Rules 

1. AH articles entered in contest must have been pro- 
duced by the exhibitor. 

2. Each entry must be accompanied by a detailed record 
of production. 

3. Only ribbon awards are offered; blue for first and red 
for second on each entry. 

4. Contests are only for pupils of schools. 

Other residents of the township are asked to make entries 
at the exhibition in a separate class. 

* When one knows the situation in Scioto Township, where Superin- 
tendent Horton is carrying forward this excellent work with such 
splendid success, one cannot resist the conviction that he is uncon- 
sciously solving two great problems, at least in his own township, 
that are of special interest to school teachers. By getting the patrons 



AGRICULTURAL CLUBS 163 

5. Each pupil exhibitor should write a composition of 
not less than 200 nor more than 800 words telHng all his 
experience in production. A prize is offered for the best one. 

6. Schools will be dismissed the day before the exhibition 
when all articles except classes B and G must be entered and 
arranged. 

7. Contests must be limited to those articles mentioned 
in the premium list. Other articles may be put on tables 
for show only. 

8. Only one entry will be allowed each person for any one 
premium. 

9. The school committees are to assist the judges when 
making awards and otherwise help as suggested by the 
teachers. 

10. Record blanks may be secured from the officers and 
from the chairmen of the committees. 

11. A premium will be given to the school having the 
best exhibit. 

12. There will be three classes for contests as follows: 
children under ten; ten years and over; high school. 

13. Each exhibitor will be given a number, and this 
number will be placed on all his exhibits. No exhibits may 
bear the names of exhibitors. 

I. Premium List 

The following premium list is meant merely as a 
suggestive one. Only those things should be listed 

of his district intensely interested in their schools by appealing to 
them through their own vocation, they are unwilling that he 
should leave his work there and go elsewhere; and thus it happens 
that his tenure of office and salary are more satisfactorily arranged. 



164 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 



that appeal to the community, or upon which it is de- 
sired to place special emphasis. For the first year it is 
highly desirable to make the list as short as may be 
consistent with the needs of the schools. The list may 
be lengthened as the club gains in experience: 



Class A. — 

1. Acre yield white corn. 

2. Acre yield yellow corn. 

3. One tenth acre white 

corn. 

4. One tenth acre yellow 

corn. 

5. 10 ears white corn. 

6. 10 ears yellow corn. 

7. 10 ears white pop corn. 

8. 10 ears yellow pop corn. 

9. 10 ears sugar corn. 

10. Largest ear white corn. 

11. Largest ear yellow corn. 

12. Tallest stalk of corn. 

13. Best jdeld bush beans. 

14. Best yield pole beans. 

(Plots of beans to 
contain 150 sq. ft.) 

15. Peck yellow sweet pota- 

toes. 



Farm Crops 

16. Peck white sweet pota- 

toes. 

17. Peck red sweet potatoes. 

18. Peck onions. 

19. Peck turnips. 

20. Peck beets. 

21. Peck potatoes. 

22. Largest squash. 

23. Largest crook-neck 

squash. 
Largest pumpkin. 
Largest sunflower. 
Largest cabbage. 
Best 5 beets. 
Best 5 turnips. 
Best 5 radishes. 
Best 5 mangoes. 
Quart of peanuts. 



24, 

25 
26 
27 
28 
29 

30 
31 



Class B. — Culinary Articles 
32. Loaf white bread. 34. Layer cake. 



33. Plate of rolls. 



35. SoUd cake. 



AGRICULTURAL CLUBS 



i6S 



36. 


Plate cookies. 


SS. Corn bread. 


37- 


Best pie. 


39. Roll of butter. 




Class C. — Canned Goods 




(Quart cans only.) 


40. 


Peaches. 


47. Cherries. 


41. 


Apples. 


48. Grapes. 


42. 


Pears. 


49. Plums, 


43- 


Quinces. 


50. Tomatoes. 


44. 


Beets. 


51. Corn. 


45- 


Cucumbers. 


52. Beans. 


46. 


Blackberries. 


53. Glass of jelly. 




Class D, 


. — Fruits 


54. 


Plate 5 apples. 


58. Plate 5 bunches 


55- 


Plate 5 pears. 


grapes. 


56. 


Plate 5 quinces. 


59. Quart basket plums. 


57- 


Plate 5 peaches. 


60. Quart basket apricoi 




Class E. — Sewed Articles 


61. 


Gingham apron. 


70. Doily. 


62. 


Dust cap. 


71. Stand cover. 


63. 


White apron (embroid- 


72. Pillow top. 




ered). 


73. Quilt block (cotton). 


64. 


White apron (plain). 


74. Quilt block (wool). 


65- 


Fancy apron (colors). 


75. Doll dress (white). 


66. 


Calico apron. 


76. Doll dress (colors). 


67. 


Handkerchief (plain). 


77. Dressed doll. 


68. 


Handkerchief (fancy) . 


78. Clothespin doll. 


69. 


Handkerchief (hem- 


79. Pincushion. 




stitched). 


80. Towel (hemstitched). 



1 66 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 



8i. 


Bonnet (colors). 


84. 


Doll apron. 


82. 


Bonnet (white). 


85. 


Patch. 


S3- 


Hair receiver. 


86. 


Buttonholes. 



Class F. — Farm Manual Training 
87. Model sled. 92. Model table. 



88. Model harrow. 


93. Bird house. 


89. Model planker. 


94. Seed collection. 


90. Model gate. 


95. Wood collection. 


91. Model poultry house. 96. Leaf collections. 


Class G.- 


—Small Farm Animals 


97. Trio of chickens. 


102. Two goats.; 


98. Trio of ducks. 


103. Calf. 


99. Pair Belgian hares. 104. Colt. 


100. Two pigs. 


105. Dog. 


loi. Two sheep. 


106. Cat. 


11. 


Vegetable Record 



Name of Club 



Name of contestant. 
Address 



Preparation of seed bed 

Kind of soil Area of plot_ 

Kind of vegetables. 



Where was seed obtained?. 

Kind of fertilizer 

Date of planting 

Depth planted 



Date plants appeared above ground. 



AGRICULTURAL CLUBS 167 

Dates of cultivation, how and why 



Date of harvesting 

Quantity (by weight) harvested 

Signed by witness, outside of family, who can say that the 

crop was produced and harvested by contestant. 

Name Address . 



Sec'y. 



Pres. 



III. A Short List of Helpful Books 

"Boys' Agricultural Clubs," by Dick J. Crosby. U. S. 
Department of Agriculture Year Book for 1904, pp. 489-496. 

"Boys' and Girls' Agricultural Clubs," by F. W. Howe, 
Farmers' Bulletin j8j, U. S. Department of Agriculture, igio. 

"Elementary Agriculture and Industrial Clubs," by 
H. W. Foght, Chapter XI, in his The Rural School. The 
Macmillan Company, New York, 1910. 

"Boys' Agricultural Clubs," by B. M. Davis, Chapter 
XII in his Agricultural Education in the Public Schools. 
The University of Chicago Press, 191 2. 

The Rural Educator (Columbus, Ohio). See index to 
volumes. 

Review of Chapter XIV 

Answer these queries — 

Of what benefit are boys' and girls' clubs? Define boys' 
and girls' clubs. What are their acknowledged purposes? 
What are their chief promoting agencies? What of their 
relations to the pubhc schools? Under what conditions was 



1 68 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS 

the Scioto Corn Club organized? How were the pupils 
and the patrons prepared for the work of the club? How 
was the exhibition conducted? What do you think of the 
educational expediency of offering valuable prizes at con- 
tests? What are some of the important considerations to be 
kept in mind in organizing club work? How may club 
work aid in the solution of the problems of salary and tenure 
of office for teachers? 



INDEX 



Administration of agricultural 
education, 58-60. 

Esthetic aim in nature study, 70. 

Agencies for preparing teachers, 
36-61. 

Agricultural college, failure of, 21. 

Agricultural demonstration field, 
130-147; arrangement, 135- 
136; economic basis, 140-142; 
list of exercises, 142-147; man- 
agement, 136-138, 140-141; 
record, 139-140; size, 135. 

Agricultural education adminis- 
tration department, 59-60. 

Agricultural education contrib- 
utes to educational aims, 82- 
91. 

Agricultural experience, value 
of, 99. 

Agricultural graduates as teach- 
ers of agriculture, 118-119. 

Agricultural nature study, 65. 

Agricultural teachers, training 
of, 51-61. 

Agricultural teaching, synthetic, 
98-99. 

Agricultural type habits, loi- 
104. 

Agriculture, and density of pop- 
ulation, 12-15; a^s a means of 



education, 80-91; as a per- 
manent school subject, 8-9; 
as a pre-vocational subject, 
111-112; defined, 79; double 
sanction of, as school subject, 
80-81 ; judging educational 
value of, 81-82. 

Aims of education contributed 
to by education in agricul- 
ture, 82-91. 

Apparatus, expense of, 124-125; 
kind needed, 124. 

Apprentice system inadequate in 
agricultural education, 97-98. 

Babcock, Eenest B., 132. 
Bagley, W. C, 82, 90. 
Bailey, Dean L. H., 64, 67, 71, 

95- 

Bawden, William T., 150. 

"Behind-time" sin, 20-21. 

Benson, O. H., 155, 156. 

Books on agricultural educa- 
tion, 41-42. 

Boys' and girls' agricultural 
clubs, 154-167; an example, 
157-167; defined, 154-15S; 
promoting agencies, 156-157; 
purposes, 155-156; references, 
167; rules, 162-163. 



169 



lyo 



INDEX 



Brains and farming, 124-125. 
Bricker, Garland A., 76, 88, 
90, 93, 102, 108, no, 116. 

Caldwell, Otis W., 72. 

Chinese agriculture, 11. 

Civilization and agriculture, 15. 

College courses in agricultural 
education, 51-61. 

CoMSTOCK, Anna B., 73. 

Conservation of fertility, 18-20. 

Contests, awarding prizes in, 160; 
premium list, 163-166; record, 
166; rules, 162-163. 

Cooperative use of equipment, 
124-129; by high and elemen- 
tary schools, 126; in different 
subjects, 126-127; in rural 
schools, 125; suggestive list, 
127-128. 

CoRBETT, L. C, 133. 

Coulter and Patterson, 65, 66. 

Courses of study for teachers of 
agriculture in outline, 155-158. 

Crosby, D. J., 81, 167. 

Cultural aim in nature study, 70. 

Davenport, Eugene, 12, 79. 
Davis, B. M., 132, 167. 
Demonstration-field idea, 133- 

135- 
Economic aim in nature study, 

71- 

Education, 63. 

Educational Review, 11. 

Elementary agriculture, an an- 
alogy, 75-76; and nature 
study, 62-74; defined, 79; 



formulating course in, 108-1 10; 
its field and subjects, 93-95; 
its place in the grades, 95, 106- 
108 ; its rise as a school subject, 
64-65; materials for study, 76; 
pedagogical principles appli- 
cable, in teaching, 96-97; what 
is it? 75-79. 

Elementary science, 66. 

Enthusiasm, 28-29. 

Ethical aim of nature study, 69. 

Exercises for the demonstration 
field, 142-147. 

Exhibits of clubs, 159-160. 

First aids, 27. 
Fletcher, A. G., 140. 
FoGHT, H. W., 23, 68, 167. 

Galloway, B. T., 13?. 

Gang, E., 133. 

General training of teachers of 

agriculture, 54. 
German agriculture, 11. 
Gilbert, J. P., 100. 
Greene, Louise, 132. i 

Hall, G. Stanley, 100. 

Harmonious adjustment, 29-30. 

Henderson, Ernest N., 82. 

Herbart, John F., 87. 

Hodge, Clifton F., 64, 67, 68, 
69, 71. 

HoLTZ, Frederick L., 69, 70, 71. 

Home projects, 147-153; eco- 
nomic results, 148-149; list of, 
149-153- 



INDEX 



171 



Home study of agriculture, 3 6-3 7. 
Hopkins, Cyril G., 19. 
HoRTON, T. W., 157, 158, 160, 

162. 
Hour, scholastic, defined, 56. 
Howe, F. W., 167. 
Hummel, William G. and 

Bertha Royce, 116. 

Industrial and vocational sub- 
jects, a distinction, 95-96. 

Intensive agriculture, 10-16; why 
necessary, 12-14. 

Jackman, Wilbur S., 69, 73. 
Japanese agriculture, 14-15. 
Jewell, James R., 132. 
Jordan, W. H., 81. 

Kern, O. J., 133. 
King, F. H., ii. 

Knowledge aim in nature study, 
71- 

Macfeat, Minnie, 132. 
McCready, S. B., 132. 
McKenzie, F. a., 15. 
McMuRRAY, Charles A., 68, 70, 

71. 
Mental-discipline aim in nature 

study, 69. 
Meyers, Ira B., 68, 69. 
MiNEAR, S. A., 73. 
MorriU Act, 21. 
Moving pictures in agricultural 

teaching, 128-129. 



Nathan, Stella and Miller, 
Caro, 133. 

Nature study and elementary 
agriculture, methods com- 

■ pared, 78-79; relations of, 73. 

Nature study, as a purpose, 69- 
72; as a science, 72-73; failure 
of, in teaching agriculture, 22; 
its field, 73; its status in the 
schools, 62-63; what is it? 
66-73. 

Nature study teacher as a teacher 
of agriculture, 116-118. 

N. E. A. report. Committee on 
Industrial Education, 95-106. 

Nelson funds, 43-44. 

Newman, Hugo, 70. 

Nolan, A. W., 78, 153. 

Normal school courses in agri- 
cultural education, 51-61. 

Observational aim in nature 

study, 70. 
O'Shea, M. v., 82, 88. 
Outline for one-year course in 

agriculture, 11 2-1 15. 

Pedagogical problems in agricul- 
tural teaching, 93-105. 

Pierce, John B., 132. 

Printed page, use of, 1 21-12 2. 

Prizes in contests, 160. 

Professional knowledge, 30-31. 

Professional training of agricul- 
tural teachers, 53-54. 

Public school agriculture, suc- 
cess of, 22-23. 



172 



INDEX 



Pure and applied science methods 
of approach, loo-ioi. 

Raymont, T., 82. 

Reasons for education in agricul- 
ture, 7, 10, 17, 20, 21, 23-24. 

Religious aim in nature study, 
68-69. 

Responsibility of teachers, 9, 
15-16. 

Rise of popular education in 
agriculture, 7-9. 

RuEDiGER, William C, 82. 

Rural Educator, 78, 133, 140, 156, 

157, 167. 
Rural mindedness, 27-28. 

ScHMUCKER, Samuel C, 69. 

School agriculture, administra- 
tion and teaching, 106-123. 

School garden, 130-132; list of 
references on, 132-133. 

Science, 66. 

Science teacher as a teacher of 
agriculture, 119-121. 

Scientific agriculture, 17-26. 

Scientific-method aim in nature 
study, 71. 

Scioto Corn Club, 157-167. 

Scott, Charles B., 66, 68, 71. 

Seasonal sequence defined, no. 

Selvig, C. G., 149. 

Sentimental aim in nature study, 
70. 

SiPE, Susan B., 132. 

Soil exhaustion, 19-20. 

Soil fertility, depletion of, 18-20, 



Stead, Alfred, 14. 
Stimson, R. W., 150. 
Summer schools, 38-40. 

Teacher of agriculture, 11 5-1 2 2. 
Teachers' extension schools, 42- 

51- 

Teachers' institutes, 37; a sub- 
stitute for, 48-49. 

Teachers' meetings, 37-38. 

Teachers' preparation, in con- 
tent and method, 34-35; se- 
riousness of, :iy, to teach agri- 
culture, 32-35; two motives 
for, 33-34- 

Teachers, qualifications of, 27-31. 

Teaching, definite reactions to, 
122. 

Technical training of agricul- 
tural teachers, 52-53. 

Textbook, use of, in teaching 
agriculture, iio-iii. 

Thorndike, Edward L., 82, 90. 

True, Dr. A. C, 75. 

Unpreparedness of teachers to 
teach agriculture, 9. 

Unscientific agriculture is waste- 
ful, 17. 

Van Slyke, Lucius L., 19. 

Warren, George F., 87. 
Wilson, Mrs. L. L., 70, 71. 

Yamawaki, Haruki, 14. 



TEXTBOOKS IN AGRICULTURE 



BUFFUMAND DEAVER'S SIXTY LESSONS 

IN AGRICULTURE ^0.60 

^ An easy and interesting bock for the sixth, seventh and 
eighth grades, covering such a wide range of topics that the 
book is adapted to every section of the country. The treat- 
ment is by no means technical, and consequently is suitable 
for schools whose teachers have had no special training in 
agriculture. The book aims to present useful information, 
which will increase the efficiency of farming operations and 
improve the general character of farm life. Numerous ques- 
tions and illustrations are included. 

BEXELL AND NICHOLS'S PRINCIPLES OF 
BOOKKEEPING AND FARM ACCOUNTS 
Textbook, ^0.65; Blanks, ^0.45; Reference Book, $0.50 
^ The first book in its field to teach a simple system 
of keeping such accounts as are of value to farmers. It deals 
only with the commodities and conditions of farming. 
There are many helpful exercises and review questions. All 
the material used has been tested both in the classroom and on 
the farm. In the blanks, the pupil is to work out the opera- 
tions specified in the textbook. The course is well adapted 
for grammar grades. 

GOFF & MAYNE'S FIRST PRINCIPLES OF 

AGRICULTURE ^0.80 

^ The center of interest in this textbook is the farm, its in- 
dustries, economics, and science. The pupil is taught the 
reason for the more important agricultural operations, and the 
explanations of the phenomena which accompany them. The 
soil and vegetation are first taken up, including such important 
topics as rotation of crops, the parasites of plants, seed testing, 
animals that destroy insects, and the improvement of plants. 
Then follow chapters on dairying, live stock, poultry, bee- 
keeping, and the improvement of home and school yards. 




(327) 



MAYNE & HATCH'S HIGH 
SCHOOL AGRICULTURE 

By D, D. MAYNE, Principal of School of Agriculture and 
Professor of Agricultural Pedagogics, University of Min- 
nesota; and K. L. HATCH, Professor of Agricul- 
tural Education, University of Wisconsin. 



THIS course has a double value for pupils in the first 
years of the high school. On the one hand, it puts 
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^ The topics are taken up in the text in their logical order. 
The treatment begins with an elementary agricultural chem- 
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sections on soils and fertilizers; agricultural botany; economic 
plants, including field and forage crops, fruits and vege- 
tables; plant diseases; insect enemies; animal husbandry; and 
farm management. 

^[ The chapter on plant diseases, by Dr. E. M. Freeman, 
Professor of Botany and Vegetable Pathology, College of 
Agriculture, University of Minnesota, describes the various 
fungus growths that injure crops, and suggests methods of 
fighting them. The section on farm management treats farm- 
ing from the modern standpoint as a business proposition. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(324) 



WILKINSON'S PRACTICAL 
AGRICULTURE 

By JOHN W. WILKINSON, A. M., Assistant State 
Superintendent of Public Instruction, Oklahoma ; for- 
merly Professor of Agricultiire in Northwestern Normal 
School, Alva, Oklahoma. 

Sl.OO 



A COMPLETE and practical treatise suited for the eighth 
grade of grammar schools, or for high or normal 
schools. It gives the pupil a definite technical training, 
and fits him for farm life in any part of the United States. 
^The work takes up Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry, 
Landscape Gardening, Animal Husbandry, Stock Feeding, 
Roads and Roadbuilding, and Country Life Conveniences. 
Air, light, water, and soil, the staple farm crops, fertilizers, 
the improvement of plant varieties, and the enemies of plants, 
are discussed in a particularly helpful manner. Besides the 
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questions on the text, and references to more exhaustive 
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^ Nearly one-third of the book is devoted to topics which 
relate to Civic Improvement. This extension of the field is 
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course in agriculture into a course in farm citizenship. It 
corresponds to the incorporation of prevention of disease and 
public health in a course in physiology. 

^ In the preparation of the book the author has kept constantly 
in mind the needs of the student as well as the facilities 
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the various topics treated, and in every instance abundant lati- 
tude is given the instructor to show his own individuality in 
developing and carrying out the ideas suggested by the text 
in the most helpful manner. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(•79) 



